Ramgopal Varma has directed Adavi (or rather Agyaat in Hindi) and this will be the only reason why 99.99% of the audience would be present in the theatre to watch this badly dubbed version. The same 99.99% would expect that this path-breaking director with masterpieces in Telugu would come up with an edge-of-the seat thriller… but sadly that is not to be and so Adavi leaves 100% of the audience disappointed!!!

What is it about : Adavi is loosely inspired by the Hollywood flick “Predator” which had an alien killing commandos in a forest until it is finished off by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Here Varma throws in a film unit that lands up in an exotic forest for a shoot. This team comprises of Sujal (Nitin) the assistant director who fancies the sexy heroine Asha (Priyanka) while the egoistic superstar, the eccentric director, the hot-headed action director, the spineless producer, etc fill the backdrop. An overnight camping trip in the middle of the forest goes horribly wrong when their guide is found brutally killed. Left without a guide, this group of nine find themselves being hunted and mercilessly killed by a faceless entity. The rest of the movie is about them running around in circles from this entity in an unknown forest with their petty ego issues intact. Only Nitin and Priyanka survive this chase by chance until till the tame climax makes no difference to the bored audience.

What is Good: The best part about the Adavi is the Cinematography (Surjadeep Ghosh) and the Sound (Dwarak Warrier). The forest is the integral character in the movie and it comes alive with its sights and sounds thanks to these two guys. Apart from this, there is nothing in the movie that stays on apart from some decent performance by Priyanka, Nitin and Gautam who plays the narcissist star. Despite the unlimited skin show right from the first frame, Priyanka surprisingly manages to hold her own with a decent performance.

What is bad: Despite a running time of less than two hours, Adavi falters and becomes predictable which leaves the audience restless. The biggest culprit for this was the lack of thrills and chills which was supposed to be the USP of Adavi. Almost 80% of the movie is dedicated to showing the people on the run from this creature and they keep running and shouting without scaring anyone. Unlike Predator, where the humans smartly fight back, the Adavi characters show the no such thinking which leaves them very disconnected with the audience.

Me Thinks: One of Varma’s strong points is his story-telling ability using strong technical elements that keeps you connected. But with Adavi, he falters hugely by not being able to bring enough dramatic elements to sustain that interest and connect wit the audience. Adavi ultimately ends up as another technically brilliant but a soulless story.

Tailpiece: The movie ends with the promise of a sequel … the viewers would certainly hope that the sequel lives up to the promises that Adavi failed to deliver!!!