Agent: Malli Malli is a trippy dance number that proves Akhil Akkineni is indeed a gifted dancer

Akhil Akkineni, who scored the first hit in his career with Bommarillu Bhasker’s family entertainer Most Eligible Bachelor, is going out all to prove himself as a male lead with machismo in his next, Agent, an action thriller. Written by Vakkantham Vamsi and directed by Surender Reddy, the film hits screens on April 28. Sakshi Vaidya is set to make her debut as a female lead with Agent.

After the first glimpse opened to encouraging responses all over, the first single from the film, Malli Malli, crooned and composed by Hiphop Tamizha, written by Aditya Iyengar, was launched on Wednesday. The stylish, trippy number features the lead pair Akhil and Sakshi, where the former conveys how he’s smitten by her charm, making use of jargon unique to a spy.

The number doesn’t pretend to boast any depth or layers - it simply wants to be a catchy, eye-candy song with trendy musical beats, good-looking actors grooving in stylish costumes across exotic locales. Malli Malli stays true to the spy universe of Agent and the style quotient of the film, though there’s hardly anything memorable about it and has the recall value of a factory product.

Take a glimpse at the initial lines of the song and you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about - ‘Pilla nee valley dil la..Dhak dhak yento perigenila..Nello ika chudala..Jaruguno ledho ee maaya..Adhi love oh nee navvo..Ayya romeo oh ammayo.’ Hiphop Tamizha are not new to Telugu audiences and their work was well appreciated in films like Dhruva and Krishnarjuna Yuddham in the past.

Akhil, while launching the song, even interacted briefly with movie buffs on Twitter. Mammootty plays another crucial role in the film produced by Ramabrahmam Sunkara under AK Entertainments and Surender 2 Cinema. Agent will have a pan-Indian release across five languages - Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam. Rasool Ellore and Navin Nooli are the cinematographer and the editor respectively.