Hello is a Telugu movie starring Akhil and Kalyani, released on 22 Dec 2017. Hello is directed by Vikram K. Kumar and produced by Nagarjuna. Although the film received mixed to positive reviews, it ended up as a flop.
What’s wrong with the film?
The film lacks a strong conflict. Hello starts as a beautiful story of Two friends (Akhil and Kalyani) separated in childhood, still searching for each other after 14 years. The acting of Jagapathi Babu and Ramya Krishnan is an asset to the film. The emotional scenes are well written. The songs are good and have a tinge of freshness. The entire story of childhood is refreshing and worked well in setting the mood and tone of the film.
The film takes a turn when Akhil listens to the tune Kalyani used to play during their childhood on a wrong phone call he received. The rest of the film is a mess about how he does unnecessary stunts to trace Kalyani. The commercial elements spear to be forced into an otherwise romantic comedy.
He could simply walk into a customer care center with identity proof or just called from another number and answer a few questions to get the recent call data on his number. The action scenes appear to be forced and the audience lose interest as it looks ridiculous.
There are several other clichés but this one remains major and overshadows the entire film. The film would have been a lot better if they had taken care of it. This is totally unexpected from Vikram K Kumar who made a classic like Manam.
How to fix it?
The story of Hello needs a lot of development. But even if the major plot hole is found after having the first copy ready, they should have shot/replaced a single scene to apply a quick fix to avoid a major cliche.
A stranger sits next to Akhil on the same bench. He places the mobile on the bench for some reason and forgets it as he runs away in a hurry for something. The phone starts ringing and Akhil notices it. He looks around for the guy, but he couldn’t find him around. Then he attends the call. The rest of the film can be the same without any changes. Just replacing this one scene could have improved the story a lot better. Sometimes, a simple fix works better than rewriting the whole story or shelving the project. There are many incidents where movies at several stages were abandoned as they didn’t look convincing to the makers. Telugu movies depend more on the story, so such logical fallacies should be avoided wherever possible.
What do you think? Do you have any better or easier solution to improve the script? Post it in the comments for others to know.
