Aatagara

Aatagara
promotional poster
Directed by	K. M. Chaitanya
Produced by	Dwarakish Yogish Dwarakish
Screenplay by	K. M. Chaitanya, Kannan Parameshwaran
Story by	Kannan Parameshwaran
Starring	Chiranjeevi Sarja Meghana Raj Parul Yadav Anant Nag Anu Prabhakar Achyuth Kumar Dwarakish Prakash Belawadi
Music by	Anoop Seelin
Cinematography	Satya Hegde
Edited by	Haridoss KGF
Production company	Dwarakish Chitra
Release date	28 August 2015 (2015-08-28)
Country	India
Language	Kannada

Aatagara (Kannada: ಆಟಗಾರ: translation: Player) is a 2015 Indian Kannada romantic thriller film directed by K. M. Chaitanya and produced by Dwarakish Chitra in its 49th production.^[1] The film has an ensemble cast with 10 main protagonists played by Chiranjeevi Sarja, Meghana Raj, Parul Yadav, Anu Prabhakar, Achyuth Kumar, Prakash Belawadi, Balaji Manohar, Pavana Gowda, Sadhu Kokila, Aarohitha Gowda along with Ananth Nag, P. Ravi Shankar and RJ Nethra in key supporting roles.^[2] The music is composed by Anoop Seelin. The film released on 28 August 2015.^[3] The movie is based on Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None, which has already been adopted into many movies and novels in different languages all over the world.

Producer Yogish Dwarakish -director Chaitanya- hero Chiranjeevi trio later on went on to work again in Aake.

Plot

A contest show is held and all ten members should stay in a house which is in a island. Jai a drug peddler is offered money to take part. And also others too. Jai there meets Sakshi whose photo he has in his purse and both soon fall in love. But one by one get killed. Remaining 5 learn from a judge (Anant Nag) that they all have committed crimes.

Mallika was drunk and drived and killed two grandparents. She then pointed her innocent driver for it.

Sandhya, whose school's master had raped a little girl and her father had requested to jail him. But to save her school's reputation, she used a girl who said that her father had misbehaved with her so he had committed suicide.

KP, who had left his girlfriend because she was pregnant with his child and because of him she became mental.

Sakshi had left a rich man's son into a swimming pool also knowing that he doesn't knew swimming.

Mallika, Sandhya and KP get killed. Sakshi and Jai escape from house. But Jai gets shot. Sakshi emotionally sees the child saying 'Aunty come here I am going to swim' and eventually jumps into the sea. Jai however gets saved by the police and finally starts a new life by making cotton candies.

Cast

Controversy

The movie was accused as a remake of 2011 Tamil movie Aduthathu directed by Thakkali Srinivasan. However, director K. M. Chaitanya cleared the air saying that both the movies were based on Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None which was about ten characters stranded on an uninhabitated island. He also claimed that while few characters - Meghana Raj ( a model who delibarately lets a child drown), Sadhu Kokila (a cook who has killed his owner) and Prakash Belwadi ( a doctor who is always suspicious on others and acts weird)- were directly based on the characters from the novel, few other - Anu Prabhakar ( principal of a multicoloured school where a child sex abuse case has been reported), Achyuth Kumar ( TV news anchor who does not allow others to air their views ) and Parul Yadav ( a reputed cinestar who gets away from a drink & drive hit & run accident case)- were based on real life incidents.^[4] However, questions were raised to similarity between the sudden introduction of the master-mind in the basement of the secret room in both Kannada and Tamil versions in spite of the character being anonymous and not making an appearance in the novel. Similarities were also found in the reality-show backdrop, ten faces of Raavana, the characterisation of the investigating officer and the one traitor among the reality-show participants (none of which were found in the novel). It was also argued that instead of ten faces of Raavana, the team could have tweaked it to Dashavathar with metaphoric reference but did not do so as it was straight away taken from the Tamil movie. At this point of time, the team of Aatagara arranged a special screening of the movie for Thakkali Srinivasan in Bangalore. Srinivasan clarified that it is not a remake of his film. He also praised Aatagara of being an extremely well made film. He also revealed that he had made a serial inspired from Agatha Christe's novel And Then There Were None in 1995. Later he made the film Aduthathu inspired by the same. For both these, Kannan Parameshwaran worked on the story. Kannan also wrote the story and co-screenplay for Aatagara inspired by the same novel. Srinivasan also said that anything similar is to the novel and not his film. He also said anyone saying the movie a remake were ignorant and calling this movie a remake would be an absolute joke.^[5][6]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is composed by Anoop Seelin.^[7] Initially Seelin composed a total of 4 songs and the film makers reportedly dropped out a song so as to not affect the film's pace. The team reportedly came up with a riddle song which celebrated the legendary artists of Kannada cinema.^[8]

References

External links

• Aatagara on IMDb