Allari Naresh is a successful hero in Tollywood. He knows his limitations and does not venture outside his set boundaries too often. His films are minimum guarantee and work quite well at the B & C centers. He has just had a hit with Blade Babji and there were some expectations Dongala Bandi. However, too much of a good thing is also bad and Dongala Bandi falls in the excess category.

What is it about: Three soldiers, Okka Magaadu (MS Narayana), Pinakapani (Venu Madhav) and Tantia Tope (Ali) steal a treasure from the Nizams and hide it in a secret place before two of them are caught by the soldiers. The three thieves draw a map of the place where the treasure is hidden and keep a piee each with them. Their heirs, Krish (Allari Naresh), Aishwarya (Tanya), Don Amrutapani (Venu Madhav) and Tribal leader (Ali) set out to get the treasure back. All these guys are thieves and whether or not these thieves find the treasure and how they share it forms the crux of the plot.

What is Good: The film is pretty clean and most of the gags in the second half work very well. The performances by the entire lead cast are decent and though the film drags a bit in the second half, it wraps up in decent time. Almost all the comedians in the industry are there in the film and all of them get one or two good punchlines.

What is not:The film uses all the cliches that a film about treasure hunts should have. There are quite a lot of unnecessary episodes and seeing our actors treading through what essentially seems to be the same location gets quite tedious after a while. Also, most of the gags in the first half fall flat and it is only in the second half that the gags start working.

Me Thinks: Go only if you have seen all other movies in town and have nothing else to do. Dongala Bandi entertains in fits and spurts and is an average movie.

Tailpiece:Allari Naresh should seriously cut down on the number of his movies he is doing as fatigue is bound to set in otherwise. And we should stop getting these pretty (?) Mumbai models as heroines who contort their faces as if in agony and try to pass that off as expression.