After playing lover boy and boy-next-door roles, Allu Arjun gets into action mode as the sword-wielding warrior Badri in Badrinath.
His daredevil action sequences and electrifying dance numbers add some excitement, but the far-fetched plot and lacklustre scripting puts a dampener on the film. Moreover, the attempt to fuse a love story and a pious theme just doesn’t work.
The film begins with a narration of frequent attacks on Hindu temples and a decision is taken by the spiritual leaders to train young warriors to protect the shrines from terrorists and fanatics. A spiritual guru, Bhishma Narayan, (Prakash Raj) is entrusted with the job of training a bunch of kids in martial arts while at the same time inculcating spiritual values.
He is most impressed with a low-caste kid Badri (Allu Arjun) and grooms him to be a warrior and assigns him to be the protector of the sacred Badrinath temple.
It is to this temple that an atheist (Tamanna) is brought by her grandfather. Initially she is at logger-heads with Badri, but then predictably falls in love with him. However, Bhishma Narayan wants Badri to become the head of the math and to do this he must not marry but take sanyas.
Allu Arjun shrugs off his lover boy image and gets a beefed-up look. Tamanna gives ample proof of her acting skills and looks sensuous in the song sequences. Prakash Raj, Kelly Dorjee and Ashwini are adequate, but comedians Brahmanandam and Krishna Bhagwan hugely disappoint.
Vinayak gets some fast-paced action and there are some eye-pleasing visuals, but the love angle is unconvincing. At the end we don't know whether the saint-warrior took the hand of Tamanna because he loves her or because he is just obeying the orders of his spiritual guru.
