MITRUDU
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: film on destiny/astrology
Genre: Family
Type: Straight
Banner: Vaishnavi Cinema
Punchline: film on destiny/astrology
Genre: Family
Type: Straight
Banner: Vaishnavi Cinema
Cast: Bala Krishna, Priyamani, Deepak, Srilatha, Pradeep Rawat, Ranganadh, Balayya, Brahmanandam, Krishna Bhagawan, Chandra Mohan, Dharmavarapu, Hema, Sana etc
Music: Mani Sharma
Cinematography: Bala Murugan
Editing: Kola Bhaskar
Art: Anand Sai
Stunts: Ram - Lakshman
Story: Vijayendra Prasad
Dialogues: M Ratnam
Styling: Rama Rajamouli
Screenplay - direction: Mahadev
Producer: Sivalenka Krishna Prasad
Release date: 1 May 2009
Story
Aditya (Bala Krishna) is a loner who is depressed and he stays in Malaysia. Indu (Priyamani) is the daughter of a billionaire businessman and she studies in Malaysia. Her astrologer back home tells her the attributes of her ideal choice and those attributes meet that of Aditya’s. After a few failed attempts, Aditya accepts the proposal of Indu and gets married to her. The rest of the story is all about why Aditya is depressed and is about the real reason behind Indu chasing Aditya and marrying him
Artists Performance
Bala Krishna is pretty handsome as Aditya. He downplayed himself in lots of scenes and did justice to the character. He has very few dialogues in the first half. Priyamani is very good and she got nice footage in the movie. Srilatha got a lengthy character as the friend of Priyamani. Brahmanandam is entertaining as JB Zen (Jana Bethedu Janardhan). Deepak did an important role in this movie after King and Arundhati. Krishna Bhagawan is also entertaining. Ranganadh, Balayya, Chalapati Rao and others are adequate.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the movie is penned by Vijayendra Prasad who penned the stories for all Rajamouli’s films. The story is based on astrological predictions and soothsaying. Direction is adequate for the first timer. But he should have injected good commercial payoffs like his mentor Rajamouli. By placing the fate/destiny as the spoilsport, the director couldn’t elevate the villain’s stature. And due to lack of direct conflict between hero and villain, the commercial payoffs don’t happen. Screenplay should have been more compact.
Other departments: Music and background score by Mani Sharma is satisfactory. The family song that comes during flashback episode is good. Dialogues by Ratnam are adequate. Photography of the movie is pleasant. Art direction for the ruined/burnt house during climax is good. Producer Sivalenka Krishna Prasad made this movie with good production values.
Analysis: Mitrudu is a soft film with not much of punch dialogues and mass sequences. The plus points of the movie are Bala Krishna and a flashback episode. On the flip side, the movie lacks commercial payoffs and the most vital hero-villain direct conflict angle. There is no relevance to the story and the title of the movie. We have to wait and see how the family crowds take it.
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ADHINETA
PRAVIN rating: 2/5
Punchline: common man to CM
Genre: Political
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Satya Sai Arts
Cast: Jagapathi Babu, Shraddha Das, Hamsa Nandini, Neelima, Paruchuri Gopala Krishna, Ahuti Prasad, Uttej, Anand Raj, Chalapathi Rao, Annapurna, Siva Parvathi, Krishna Bhagawan etc
Music: Srikanth Deva
Cinematography: Prasad
Art: Ramana Vanka
Fights: Ram Lakshman
Editing: Nandamuri Hari
Story - dialogues: Paruchuri brothers
Screenplay - direction: V Samudra
Producer: KK Radha Mohan
Release date: 24 April 2009
Review
Story
Suri (Jagapati Babu) is an unemployed youth in a small town. His parents are worried because the girls refuse to marry him because he is unemployed and did not complete his graduation. They approach the local honest leader Sreeramulu (Paruchuri Gopala Krishna) who recommend him for the job of chief minister’s personal secretary. As a secretary of CM, he takes up several issues and answers them. In the process, he realizes that the CM is crooked. CM gets Sreeramulu killed in an accident. Suri contests as an independent from Sreeramulu constituency and wins with a huge margin. He accumulates a group of 25 such independents. The results suggest a hung assembly. Suri offers to support whichever party that makes him the chief minister. The CM under which he works as a secretary offers to make him CM. The rest of the story is all about how Suri brings change with the power bestowed on him.
Artists Performance
Jagapati Babu is pretty good in the role of Suri. His histrionics in temple song are good. However, he should have stressed more on his dialogue delivery (for example he said Abrudhi instead of Abhivrudhi three times in this movie). Shraddha Das is adequate as female lead. Hamsa Nandini played the role of a cop who seduces her preys by exposing. Neelima (granddaughter of V Madhusudhana Rao) did a small role. Paruchuri Gopala Krishna whose body language suits more of negative and crooked roles (Prati Dhwani, Naga and Sasirekha Parinayam) did the role of an honest political leader in Adhineta. Uttej got a good role. Siva Parvathi did a pivotal role in this movie. Ahuti Prasad, Anant Raj, Annapurna, Chalapati Rao, Krishna Bhagawan etc are ok.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The story of the movie has good potential. It is about a common man becoming a CM. But the treatment and execution leaves a lot to be desired. Direction of the movie is too simplified and mass oriented by leaving the sensibilities aside. There are many scenes in the movie that are inspired by innumerable movies like
1. Oke Okkadu: Working style of CM
2. Tagore: Unearthing the hospital scam
3. Hallabol: Hero urinating in the house of the villain
4. Karnataka elections: Yediyurappa becoming CM of Karnataka with a small segment of MLAs due to hung assembly.
Other departments: Music of the movie is alright and most of the tunes are inspired ones. Cinematography is mediocre as the movie was shot at a brisk pace. Dialogues by Paruchuri brothers are adequate.
Political twist: This film has resemblance to three political forces of AP – Congress, TDP and PRP. The CM in this movie is expected to be modeled after YSR (with election symbol being folding arms). The opposition leader is modeled after Nara Chandra Babu naidu. Jagapati Babu’s character is modeled after Chiranjeevi with taglines of the change and social justice. The get-ups of these three actors Ahuti Prasad (white panche kattu and three colored flags), Raghunadha Reddy (khaddar pant and shirt and yellow flag) and Jagapati Babu (while shirt and white flag with green bottom strip) have close resemblance to YSR, Chandra Babu Naidu and Chiranjeevi respectively. There are severe criticisms on Congress and is mild criticism on TDP.
Analysis: Adhineta is a political film that has good value in the basic premise, but gone wrong due to placid execution and too much of simplification. The director tried to get inspired by other movies in terms of taking and scenes than depending on his own strength. Agreed that movies are not supposed to be logical. People ignore logics if the narration is gripping. Other wise, all these illogical scenes appear too big to ignore. This film has some potential to do well in B and C centers. On a whole, Adhineta disappoints.
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PUNNAMINAGU
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: snake story
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sound & Clap
Cast: Mumaith Khan, Rajiv Kanakala, Suhasini, Srinivasa Reddy, Nalini, MS Narayana, Melkote, Venu etc
Music: SA Raj Kumar
Cinematography: PN Babu
Story: Yandamuri Veerendranath
Screenplay - direction: A Kodandarami Reddy
Producer: G Vijay Kumar Goud
Release date: 10 April 2009
Review
Story
A gang of snake skin poachers kill a male snake during the time of holy dance to snatch a powerful diamond from it. The female snake (Mumaith Khan) sets out to take revenge on them. But it is constrained due to certain rules. Hence it has to take form of a woman with certain qualifications. That woman turns out to be a model (Mumaith Khan) who is also a daughter of a sincere police officer. The rest of the story is all about how female snake takes revenge on the snake poachers.
Artists Performance
Mumaith Khan is adequate as a model who is possessed by a female snake. Rajiv Kanakala is alright as the male lead. Suhasini is good as the dumb girl. MS Narayana is ineffective. Vinod Kumar did the role of one of the poachers. Srinivas Reddy is adequate. Nalini is loud as the witch.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film has potential in it. But an uninteresting screenplay coupled by archaic direction makes this film unappealing. There are good commercial elements in the movie. But director could not capitalize on those aspects. However, there are still some elements that might cater to the masses of B and C centers.
Other departments: Music by SA Raj Kumar is mediocre. The remix of Ragulutundi Mogali Poda is good. Dialogues are ordinary. Cinematography is average. Visual effects don’t impress.
Analysis: Punnami Nagu is about a snake’s revenge as the title suggests. It is for the people who still want to see bhakti cinemas made on snakes. If you have such frame of mind and orientation, you may watch it. Otherwise, the entire concept, treatment and orientation might not go well with the movie lovers of contemporary cinema.
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CIRCUS CIRCUS
PRAVIN rating: NA (not applicable as it's a kids film)
Punchline: kids stuff
Genre: Children
Type: Straight
Banner: Sagittarius Films
Cast: Ajay, Chandini, Usha Sri and Manish Singh, Sreedhar, Lahari, Madhuri Sen etc
Music: Shyam Das
Cinematography: Sharath
Story - screenplay - direction - producer: S Umesh Kumar
Release date: 24 April 2009
Review
Story
There is an NRI couple who come to Vizag on a research project. Their daughter and her cousins love playing in the beach. The kids listen to the story of a lighthouse in the beach which was once used by the sea pirates. But that lighthouse is not in use any more. One stormy night they observe that the lighthouse is functioning. They suspect that sea pirates might be operating using the lighthouse. The kids start investigating from the next day onwards. The rest of the story is all about how the kids unearth kidnapping and smuggling activities.
Artists Performance
The four kids (Ajay, Chandini, Usha Sri and Manish Singh) who enacted the lead roles are cute. The guy who did the role of servant is pretty good at comedy. The ventriloquism is also entertaining. Lahari got a lengthy role and she did justice. Sreedhar and Madhuri Sen are also adequate.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The basic story has inspirations in Enid Blyton's Famous Five book series. It is a simple story that revolves around a lighthouse. The director could able to extract nice and unadulterated histrionics from the kids. However, he could not make the scenes involving adults appear natural. Screenplay of the film is plain.
Other departments: Songs scored by Shyam – Das are good. Joker and Beautiful Day songs are nicely shot. There is some problem with lip-sync in most the movie. Dialogues are adequate. Cinematography is fair and Vizag beach is explored well.
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Ananda Tandavam
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: old story
Genre: Romance
Type: Dubbing (Tamil - Ananda Tandavam)
Banner: Aascap Films (p) ltd
Cast: Tamanna, Rishab (Siddhardh), Rukhmini, Rishi, Kitty etc
Music: GV Prakash Kumar
Cinematography: Jeevan Sekhar
Dialogues: Shashank Vennelakanti
Story: Sujatha
Screenplay - direction: Gandhi Krishna
Producer: V Ravi Chandran
Release date: 10 April 2009
Review
Story
Madhumita (Tamanna) is a happy go lucky girl in a colony of a power generation plant. Her father is the chief engineer. Raghu (Rishab) is the son of a small time employee. Madhumita and her parents like Raghu and they fix an engagement with him. After the engagement, they come across a better groom (Rishi) from USA. They break this engagement to marry off Madhumita to that NRI. Raghu attempts suicide and then learns to live with the life. He goes to the USA for further studies. There he finds an interesting girl (Rukhmini). When things are going fine, Madhumita returns to his life. The rest of the story is about the complex situation Raghu goes through.
Artists Performance
Tamanna is just adequate in this film due to poor characterization. Hero Rishab’s (or Siddhardh) body language reminds us of Telugu actor Sharwanand. He is alright. Rishi resembles Tamil actor Ajith. Rukhmini is sharp and looks good in both traditional and western attires. Kitty is excellent as hero’s father.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The story of this movie is adapted by a Tamil novel written by popular movie writer Sujatha who worked extensively for most of Shankar’s movies. But the set-up in this movie appears like decades old. Hence the entire story appears silly and obsolete if we compare it with the contemporary times. The director could have made this movie as a period film by setting it up around 70’s or 80’s. Screenplay of the film is shabby. The entire first half runs on a flimsy misinterpretation of hero thinking that his father has an affair with a maid servant. Characterization is also not properly done. At one point of time, we suspect if Tamanna is mentally underdeveloped as she reacts crazily in certain situations. Direction of the film is also not up to the mark.
Other departments: Music by GV Prakash Kumar is average. Kalekantini song is the best among the picturized ones. Dialogues are adequate. Cinematography is alright. Editing of the film is bad as you can notice many jerks between scenes. Production values by Oscar Films are good. If you look at the last three films, all these films (Dasavatharam, Surya s/o Krishnan and Ananda Tandavam) are shot in USA.
Analysis: First half of the film is a let down. Second half is slightly better. But an unpopular climax fails to impress. The plus point of the film is Tamanna. The negative points are bad screenplay and inept handling of the movie. There is also lot of perversion in the movie which might not appeal to the movie lovers. On a whole, Ananda Tandavam is a letdown.
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Bheebatsam
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: lives upto the title
Genre: Thriller
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Movies entertainment
Cast: Yuvan, Madhu Sharma, Shashank, Ajay & Shafi
Music: Thaman S
Cinematography: Pavan Sekhar
Stunts: Gilli Sekhar
Story - screenplay: Yuvan
Direction: Amma Rajasekhar
Producer: G Srinivas Yadav
Release date: 27 March 2009
Review
Story
Aadi (Yuvan) is an idling youngster. He falls in love with a rich girl (Madhu Sharma). He marries her and he fails to perform sex on the first night. She humiliates him by throwing him out of her house. He has no place to go. On his way, he meets a couple of his school-time buddies. They team up and start robbing people. They get fed-up with small amounts and want to rob a bank and settle for life. They rope in another couple of guys for this job. They rob 5 crores from the bank. Since the cops are on their trail, they want to split and go to different towns by entrusting the job of carrying entire money with a single guy. The rest of the story is all about how Aadi takes sweet revenge on his wife and how he emerges as the winner.
Artists Performance
Yuvan (brother of director Amma Rajasekhar) is adequate as the underdog in this film who ends up being a traitor and a strategist. Madhu Sharma did the role of a negative touch. It’s a different characterization for Shashank and he performed really well. Ajay did the role of an intelligent investigating officer who is on the trail of robbers. Shafi is good as one of the robbers in the film. All other actors are from Tamil.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The entire second half (including the twisted climax) of the film is inspired from the Bollywood flick ‘Johnny Gaddar’. The first half is devoted for establishing three main characters and getting the conflict point ready. The story point and progression method is good. But this story is poorly handled. It is a dark film. Screenplay in the first half is not good. Second half screenplay is adequate. Direction should have been better. Too many Tamil actors and Tamil flavor rob the Telugu nativity out of this film. Story and screenplay is penned by Yuvan who acted as hero.
Following aspects in this film are flawed -
1. Heroine throwing out hero because he fails in the first night looks silly.
2. Though the technique of robbery is good, the spy cameras in bank are missing.
3. The logic behind entrusting one guy with 5 crores and sending him to different town instead of splitting one crore each is completely unconvincing.
4. Execution of killings is dealt in a dull manner.
5. Why did an intelligent cop erred in the climax of the film.
Other departments: Songs in the film are adequate. But background music is good. Taman S scored background music like a veteran. Cinematography by Pavan Sekhar (brother of Amma Rajasekhar) is okay. There are different color tones in this movie as DI (digital intermediate) is applied. Stunts by Gilli Sekhar (brother of Amma Rajasekhar) are adequate.
Analysis: First half of the film is uninteresting. Second half has interesting elements, but narration is unconvincing. The plus point is the dark story. The negative points are bad execution and uninteresting direction. This film is about cold-blooded attitude and revenge. A deft direction would have made this movie a better product. On a whole, Bheebatsam disappoints and lives up to its title.
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Manorama
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: film on humanism
Genre: Thriller
Type: Straight
Banner: Zee Motion Pictures
Cast: Charmme, Nishan, Dhanush, Pradeep, Lahari, Master Sai Kumar, Srivastav, Sridhar Rao, Ali, MS Narayana, Sudeepa, Narsing Yadav etc
Music: Koti
Cinematography: Jagan JRJ
Editing: Marthand k Venkatesh
Story - dialogues: Padmasri
Screenplay - direction: V Eeswar Reddy
Producer: P Goenka
Release date: 27 March 2009
Review
Story
Manorama chat bhandar is a popular hangout place for Hyderabadis in Koti area. Geetanjali (Charmme) stays at an apartment that is just opposite to Manorama chat place. A stranger arrives at Manorama chat and plants his bag containing a time bomb. The bomb is supposed to blast at 1 pm and it fails to do so. There are chances that it may go off at any point of time. That is when that stranger sees Geetanjali at chat bhandar and develop soft corner for her. The rest of the story is all about the bomb and the relationship between the stranger and Geetanjali.
Artists Performance
Charmme did a different role in this film. Her histrionics in the second half are worth commending. Newcomer Nishan is pretty confident. National award winning child actor Sai Kumar (Belly Full of Dreams fame) did the role of a servant in chat bhandar and he is very good. Dhanush and Pradeep (Radio Mirchi) are good in their roles. Lahari impresses with casual acting. Model Sridhar did a positive role. Ali and MS Narayana are uninteresting in this film. Srivastav (Hyderabad Nawabs fame) is mildly entertaining though he went overboard towards the end.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is humanistic. It preaches that love should overcome all the hatred developed by mankind due to various issues like religion and regionalism. The concept of Charmme watching Chat Bhandar and surroundings using a binocular from the window of her room and discovering that something is wrong reminds us of the Alfred Hitchcock’s film ‘Rear Window’. The entire Manorama chat bhandar set-up remind us of Gokul chat blasts that happened recently. The idea of animated 500 note is innovative and gives lot of relief. The dialogues written and dubbing done for the same is very good. Director Eeswar Reddy handled the first half smoothly. But he could not narrate the love angle convincingly in second half. He didn’t do the characterization of Charmme character properly. We are supposed to be sympathetic about her character, but we end up becoming bored due to the excessive preaching. The second half drags and it needs some serious trimming. The story idea and the set up of plot are good. This kind of plot needs stylish execution and sophisticated treatment. But, Manorama film isn’t treated with classy execution.
Other departments: Songs of the film are mediocre. One song is inspired from Bollywood flick Gangster (Bheegi Bheegi). Background music is adequate. Dialogues are neat. Cinematography by Jagan is average. Art direction by Ashok is authentic. Editing is fair.
Analysis: First half of the film is nice. The second half drags. The plus points are plot idea and humanism. The negative points are slow second half and excessive preaching. It is a risky proposition to make a film with limited locations and with an idealistic story with hours of time-frame. Producer should be appreciated for it. On a whole, Manorama is not a bad film though a better handling of script would have made the film more interesting.
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AAKASAMANTA
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: letting one's daughter go
Genre: Family Drama
Type: Dubbed (Abhiyum Naanum - Tamil)
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Films
Cast: Prakash Raj, Trisha, Jagapati Babu, Ganesh Venkatraman, Aishwarya etc
Music: Vidya Sagar
Cinematography: Preetha
Editing: Marthand k Venkatesh
Story - screenplay - direction: Radha Mohan
Producer: Dil Raju
Release date: 27 March 2009
Review
Story
Raghuram (Prakash Raj) owns a tea estate in Coimbatore. He married Anu (Aishwarya) – love of his life. Their daughter is Abhi. It is a lovable family with absolutely no problems. Raghuram is excessively fond of his cute daughter. He tries to guide her in every small step she takes by being with her. She finds her father to be overbearing as she grows up and she expects her father to let her go in order to find her ground in the real life. In the process she falls in love with a guy when she is sent to New Delhi to pursue MBA. The rest of the story is how Raghuram takes it when Abhi gets her beau to his house.
Artists Performance
Prakash Raj: Since entire film is told in a narrative pattern from Prakash Raj point of view, you will get to see Prakash Raj in 90% of the movie. He is an absolute delight to watch as a father. He balanced his comic timing with longing for his only daughter with unlimited ease. His body language during interview at school reminds us a bit of Mr. Bean’s.
Other actors: Three girls acted for the role of daughter at various growth levels. And all three girls look similar. The choice of these girls is perfect. Trisha and other two girls are cute. Trisha did extremely well in emotional scenes of second half. Ganesh Venkatraman is very good as Trisha’s beau. Aishwarya is demure as a lovable housewife. The guy who did the role of servant is commendable. Jagapati Babu did the role of a guy who listens to the memories of Prakash Raj in a park.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The time-frame of the story is around 25 years. The life story of a just born girl is shown till she graduates and finds her fiancée. The entire story is narrated in spaced flashback format where Prakash Raj narrates the story of his daughter to a stranger in a park. You can see certain similarities to the ‘Father of Bride’ character (Nuvve Nuvve in Telugu) in the second half. It is a difficult task to narrate a single thread of relationship between a father and a daughter. Director Radha Mohan comes up with a convincing screenplay to pull it off. Radha Mohan excels in showing sentiment scenes and a light humor episodes (especially Prakash Raj preparing for his daughter’s pre-KG interview). However, the pace goes down in the second half of the film. And the characterization of Prakash Raj character gets little confusing in the end as he keeps dillydallying about his future son-in-law.
Other departments: Music of the film is average. Cinematography is excellent. The cinematographer captures the lush greenery around tea estates very well. Dialogues are sprinkled with humor and sentiment (Abburi Ravi seem to have penned few of the dialogues). Editing is adequate.
Analysis: First half of the film is entertaining. Second half is bit slow and becomes little repetitive towards the end. Akasamantha is all about letting one’s daughter go. It is about the mental turmoil and confusion an over-possessive father goes through whenever her daughter takes the first step towards a new direction. The plus points of the film are Prakash Raj performance, entertaining first half and noble intention of making a clean film. On the flip side, the second half becomes overbearing. Producer Dil Raju should be appreciated for betting his money on a subject that lacks regular commercial elements and screenplay payoffs. On a whole, Aakasamantha is a different film made on relationships and has ingredients that appeal to the family crowds in A centers.
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SONTHA VURU
PRAVIN rating: 2.5/5
Punchline: Of Death, sex & SEZ
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sravya Films
Cast: Raja, Tirtha, LB Sreeram, Tanikella Bharani, JP, Jeeva, Rallapalli, Swati etc
Music: Saketh Sairam
Cinematography: Sabu James
Editing: Sri Gruha
Story - dialogues : LB Sriram, Nagaraju Gandham & Sunil Kumar Reddy
Screenplay - direction: Sunil Kumar Reddy
Producer: Y Ravindra Babu & Kishori Basireddy
Release date: 21 March 2009
Review
Story
Rudraswamy (LB Sriram) is an undertaker (kaati kapari) in a small village. Devudu (Tanikella Bharani) is an educated elder who is regarded as a leader of the village. When the Government approaches him to convince the villagers to sell their lands and properties as it is coming up with SEZ, Devudu convinces everybody to sell. The rest of the story is all about what happens when Rudraswamy realizes that Devudu has erred. There is also a plot of a limping poor boy (Raja) falling in love with the only prostitute (Tirtha) of the village.
Artists Performance
LB Sriram does the best role of in his career – Rudraswamy in an extremely convincing manner. Deeper philosophical dialogues aid him to make his character click. Tirtha comes up with a top-notch performance as a prostitute. Raja is very good as a limping innocent man. However, his diction and dialogue delivery didn’t match the characterization. Tanikella Bhrani is excellent in the scene where he explains the fruits of development to village men (before interval). Swati is good as the daughter of LB Sriram. Jeeva, JP and others are adequate.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is good. But screenplay is inadequate. Direction is adequate in parts. Though some of the scenes are well-handled, there is no holistic perspective to direction. The movie has some interesting scenes and some clichéd and boring episodes.
Other departments: Dialogues in this film are excellent. Some of the dialogues are deeply philosophical. There is one interesting dialogue coming up every 10 minutes in this film. The team of dialogue writers (Nagaraju Gandham, LB Sreeram & Sunil Kumar Reddy) should get a lot of credit. Songs of the film seem to be inspired from the melodies of 70’s. Background music is mediocre at the best. Cinematography is neat
Analysis: First half of the film is uninteresting because entire first half is devoted in establishing the three important characters. The real story involving SEZ starts only in the interval. The final parts of the film are convincingly done. The plus points of Sontha Vooru are writing (story and dialogues) and performances (LB Sriram & Tirtha). The negative points are slow narration and inadequate screenplay. There are a few raw scenes and raw dialogues (involving prostitute) in the film. This film is an out and out art film with not even a single commercial element. Though it would bomb at box office a big time, Sontha Vooru has ample elements to get a few awards.
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16 Days
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: 16 days to Pedda Karma
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Type: Adapted (Lucky Number Slevin)
Banner: Cosmos Entertainments
Cast: Aravind, Charmme, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Dharmavarapu & Manorama
Music: Dharan
Lyrics: Bhaskarabhatla
Cinematography: Sukumar
Editing: JN Harsha
Art: Vaira Balan
Action: Analarasu
Direction: Prabhu Solomon
Producer: DY Chowdary & P. Mahesh Babu
Release date: 20 February 2009
Review
Story
Rami Reddy and Yadav are two warring mafia leaders residing in same locality. Rami Reddy kills Yadav’s son. Yadav wants to avenge his son’s death within 16 days (Peda Karma) by killing the son of Rami Reddy. Guru Murthy (Aravind) comes to city in search of a job and he crosses the path of Yadav and Rami Reddy. Yadav assigns Gurumurthy the job of assassinating Reddy’s son. The rest of the story is all about how Gurumurthy manages his way out of it with the help of a girl called Angel (Charmme).
Artists Performance
Aravind is adequate as a youngster who is caught in the crossfire between two mafia leaders. Charmme is not good in this film due to poor characterization of her role. Kota Srinivasa Rao is good in few scenes. Dharmavarapu Subramanyam and Manorama did guest roles. All other roles are performed by Tamil artists.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of this film is borrowed from a Hollywood crime thriller titled ‘Lucky Number Slevin (2006). The entire set-up in the film looks unnatural. Direction of the film is not up to the mark. Screenplay is bad. Narration of the film is haphazard. The director succeeds in opening the film in an interesting way by setting the right tone and mood, but falters dismally as the movie progresses.
Other departments: Cinematography is good and different. The entire movie is digitally graded to have blue color to certain scenes and green/cyan colors for the rest of the scenes. The duet is good, but the rap songs shot on gangs are cacophonic. Background music is good in parts. Editing needs to be smooth.
Analysis: 16 Days is an example of how bad things can go when you borrow a theme from Hollywood flick and fail to modify it to suit our nativity. The dominating Tamil flavor also impairs the movie in Telugu version. The plus points of the film are technical values. The negative points are bad screenplay and uninteresting narration. On a whole, 16 Days disappoints.
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Konchem Istam Konchem Kastam
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: suits the title
Genre: Romance/Family Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Lakshmi Narasimha Productions
Cast: Siddhardh, Tamanna, Prakash Raj, Ramya Krishna, Nassar, Samrat, Karuna, Sudha, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Hema, Surekha
Music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Background music: Mani Sharma
Lyrics: Sirivennela, Chandrabose, Ramajogayya Sastri
Cinematography: Vijay C Chakravarthy
Dialogues: Abburi Ravi
Editing: Srikar Prasad
Screenplay: Vikram Siri - Deepak Raj
Story - direction: Kishore Kumar Parthasani
Producer: Nallamalupu Srinivas (Bujji)
Release date: 5 February 2009
Review
Story
Siddhardh is a playful youngster with no emotions. His parents get separated in his childhood and he stays with his mother. He falls in love with Geeta (Tamanna) who comes to Hyderabad from a village. When she introduces him to her father (Nassar) he says the he would give the hand of his daughter to him if Siddhardh unites his parents. The rest of the story is all about how Siddhardh unites his parents (Ramya Krishna and Prakash Raj).
Artists Performance
Siddhardh is lovable in the role of a youngster. His emotions in the drinking scene are nice. His costumes suited him well. Tamanna is good as the girl who is torn between her father and her lover. Prakash Raj got lot of dignity to the role of father character he portrayed. He is excellent. There is a scene in which he acts like Robert Di Nero by saying ‘Aren’t you proud of me?’ three times (There is a famous ‘are you talking to me?’ episode in Taxi Driver film). Nassar is fair. Ramya Krishna is just ok in the role of doting mother with an attitude. Karuna and Samrat are adequate as buddies. Brahmanandam is good in most of the scenes (especially when he listens to ‘yeem’ in phone during Geetanjali spoof episode). Venu Madhav is good though his comedy is of mass type.
Technical departments
Story: Story of the film is nicely divided into two parts. The first half is about two youngsters falling it love and hence it is targeted to the youth. The interval block is about heroine’s father putting a condition. The second half is about the couple uniting the parents of hero which is targeted towards the family crowds. The whole film is based on the point that Prakash Raj and Ramya Krishna are separated. The reasons for the separation are not effectively established in the film. Hence the basic foundation of the entire film appears flimsy.
Screenplay – direction: Screenplay of the film is adequate. Direction of the film is good in parts. The narration is very slow. The director did well in second half while handling emotional scenes. But he could not get it right when it comes to the romance aspect in the first half. He should be commended the way he integrated the songs into the film. The thread of ‘crossing marks on the people you dislike’ (‘flushing the photo in toilet’ from Jab We Met?) is interesting. Vankai curry thread is also good. The characterizations should have been more consistent. Both Siddhardh and Tamanna characters in second half behave little amateurish from the scene when they quarrel about Geeta’s surname.
Other departments: Songs scored by Shankar Ehsaan Loy are excellent and they are picturized well and placement is perfect. Songs are so good that they dominated the story narration in the film. Lyrics by Sirivennela and Chandrabose are good. Mani Sharma’s background score is nice in the second half. Cinematography by Vijay C Chakravarthy is excellent. Dialogues by Abburi Ravi are neat in the second half. There are sentiment-oriented dialogues like ‘Evarikaina problem vaste amma nanna daggaraku veltaru. Amma nanne problem aithe?’ and Trivikramish lines like ‘nenu kaalu tho break veyyaledu, jaalitho break vesa’ (Brahmanandam). Editing by Srikar Prasad is adequate. Producer Nallamalupu Bujji should be commended for trusting his technicians and making this film with high technical standards.
Analysis: First half of the film is average. Second half has got emotional content. The plus points are excellent songs and emotions in second half. The negative point of the film is slow-paced narration (2:50 hours runtime). The scenes towards climax appear prolonged. On a whole, KIKK is an okay film that is targeted towards family crowds. KIKK is not a film for the morning show crowds. It is more targeted towards second show crowds (family crowds).
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Arundhati
PRAVIN rating: 4/5
Punchline: magnum opus
Genre: Thriller
Type: Straight
Banner: Mallemala Entertainments
Cast: Anushka, Sonu Sood, Deepak, Manorama, Sayaji Shinde, Kaikala Satyanarayana, Ahuti Prasad, Annapurna
Music: Koti
Dialogues: Chintapally Ramana
Cinematography: Senthil Kumar
Visual effects: Rahul Nambiar
Art: Ashok
Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh
Story – screenplay: Mallemala unit
Direction: Kodi Rama Krishna
Producer: M Shyam Prasad Reddy
Release date: 16 January 2009
Review
Story
Arundhati (Anushka) belongs to Gadwal samsthanam in 1920’s. She is known for her bravery in saving the Samstanam by killing Pasupathi (Sonu Sood) an evildoer who creates ruckus in that place. She is praised as Jejemma (named after the famous Goddess in that area). But the spirit of Pasupathi haunts that place. Another girl is born in the same lineage after 3 generations and she is named as Arundhati. The spirit of Pasupati is after Arundhati to take the revenge. The rest of the story is all about how Arundhati puts an end to the evil spirit of Pasupathi.
Artists Performance
Anushka: This is Anushka’s first performance oriented film and she is simply amazing in two roles. There are many shots in the film where the scenes from the present time will dissolve into to flashback and vice versa. These scenes are done on Anushka are crucial in the film. She has to show the variations between the old Arundhati and new Arundhati. She did exceptionally well with subtle yet impact creating performance. Shilpa and Sowmya dubbed the voices of old and new characters respectively.
Others: Sonu Sood looks deadly in the role of Aghora. His performance is excellent. A special mention should be given to P Ravi Shankar who dubbed the voice of Sonu Sood. It is a great opportunity for any dubbing artists to get a role like this. The way he pronounces ‘ninnu vadalaa … vasta .. vasta’ is extremely good. Sayaji Shinde got a beautiful role ‘Talla Sayibu’ in this film. He is completely believable in that role. Manorama is very good. Deepak is nice. Satyanarayana and others are good. All other artists are appropriately cast in their roles.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is good. Screenplay is very good. The beauty of this screenplay is about revealing the story and information in parts. There is always something to look forward to with anticipation in the film. It possesses one of the best screenplays in the recent times. Direction by Kodi Rama Krishna is very good. However, there are a couple of violent scenes that are disturbing to the family crowds. You can see a few Hollywood inspirations like Lord of the Rings, House of Flying Daggers (drum dance), Final Destination 1 (car - train episode). A couple of episodes (the thread of drum dance by the guru & establishing Arundhati as the warrior) should have been more effectively established.
Other departments: Visual effects and graphics done by Rahul Nambiar are extraordinary. Cinematography by Senthil Kumar is excellent. Background music and rerecording by Koti is brilliant. The songs in the film go with the flow of narration. Art direction by Ashok is first-rate. Make-up work is good. Editing is smooth. Digital Ingredient (color grading) is very good. Production values of this film are extravagant.
Analysis: First half of the film is excellent and the second half is good. The plus points of the film are performances, screenplay, technical values and grandeur. The only negative point I see in this film is violence (got an A certificate from censors), which is very much required for the film to be effective. After a long time, I watched a Telugu film that has both content and technology rightly mixed to give a vibrant output. Arundhati is a film which you can proudly show it as a Telugu film to all your non-Telugu friends. And it will live up to the adjective of ‘Magnum Opus’. Two thumbs up to Shyam Prasad Reddy for making a brilliant film. Don’t watch it on internet or pirated DVDs. Arundhati is a film that must be watched in a good theater with nice sound/projection system.
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Sasirekha Parinayam
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: journey film
Genre: Romance
Type: Straight
Banner: Karthikeya Creations
Cast: Tarun, Genelia, Ahuti Prasad, Paruchuri Gopala Krishna, Subbaraju, Raghubabu, MS Narayana, Suthivelu, Sivaji Raja, Abhi, Giri, Surekha Vani, Tulasi, Geeta Singh
Music: Mani Sharma
Lyrics: Sirivennela & Anant Sreeram
Cinematography: Bhaskar Samala
Editing: Shankar
Art: Satyanarayan
Dialogues: Nagaraju
Story - screenplay - direction: Krishna Vamsi
Producer: Sunkara Madhu Murali
Release date: 1 January 2009
Review
Story
Sasirekha (Genelia) is summoned by her strict father (Ahuti Prasad) to return home. After coming home she realizes that her marriage is fixed with an NRI and her wedding is due that night. She also learns that the groom’s father is money-minded. She has no choice left but to run away. She meets Anand (Tarun) on her journey. He protects her and helps her. The rest of the story is all about the background of Anand and what happens between the couple.
Artists Performance
Genelia: You would see an entirely different Genelia in this film. She did not wear any make-up. She is completely child-like and playfully innocent. It appears like she dubbed her own voice in certain scenes of the film. Her hysterical performance when she is slapped shows another shade of her. And her performance in the scene in which she banters after getting drunk is very good. She gave wide variety of expressions in this film.
Others: Tarun plays the second fiddle. But his performance in the hospital scene in the climax is ultimate. Ahuti Prasad scores again in this film. But his usage of expletives at end his dialogue is little discomforting to ears. Subbaraju dons a refreshing (away from his usual roles) role in this film. He is excellent. Paruchuri Gopala Krishna is extremely good as the villainous elder. Abhi did a significant role. Monali Chowdary is good in a cameo. MS Narayana is excellent in the tax-payers episode. Vamsi (Paiditalli from Happy Days) has a small, but interesting role.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film has nothing to do with Jab We Met film but for a couple of slight references (heroine mouthing abuses on phone and the beginning notes of Edo song). The story of the film is simple. Hence it is very difficult to write screenplay. There is only one screenplay knot that is opened in the interval. The entire second half is about how heroine falls in love with the hero. Hence there is no conflict point in the second half as audiences are well aware by then that heroine’s parents are not going to catch her. Though the initial half an hour after the interval bores you, the director turns it around with well conceived scenes towards the end of the film. The most hilarious scene in the film belongs to MS Narayana where he explains how drunkards are helping the Government. There are two defining moments in the second half –
1. Genelia’s banter after getting drunk: The way heroine questions the man’s attitude and explains the depth of women’s heart showcases the director’s deep understanding of women. The movie turns around from this moment.
2. Lead pair getting caught in an imbroglio: An unexpected scene from an unknown angle changes the complexion of the film and provides a lead to the climax.
The following episodes in the film are unappealing
1. The lorry driver rape attempt followed by hero saving heroine.
2. The court and jail episode.
Other departments: Music of the film is alright. The best song on the screen is ‘Edo’ that comes before the climax. Nice rendition by Saindhavi helps the mood of the situation. Dialogues are nice. Krishna Vamsi seems to be allocating a few minutes of his film’s runtime to eulogize certain things in his recent films. If he had lengthy dialogues about railways and Indian traditions in Rakhi and Chandamama respectively, he tells some good things about Vijayawada (only after belittling it). Cinematography is adequate. The producer should have taken more care in the postproduction (especially DI) which would have enhanced the visual appeal of the film.
Analysis: The title cards sequence (involving visuals of Maya Bazaar song Aha Na Pellanta’) is very good. The first half of the film is adequate. The initial half of the second half is boring (a common problem with journey flicks if they do not have conflict point). The director makes it up in the last half an hour. The positive points are Genelia and last half an hour. On the flipside, there is no conflict point (that creates dramatic impact) in the second half. This film has elements that can go well with class audiences and women. We have to wait and see how it fares at box office.
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King
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: three or one
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Kamakshi Kala Movies
Cast: Nagarjuna, Trisha, Mamata Mohandas, Srihari, Deepak, Geetha, Brahmanandam, Sunil, MS Narayana, Krishna Bhagawan, Jayaparakash Reddy, Ajay, Surya, Chandra Mohan, Sayaji Shinde, Venu Madhav, Master Bharath, Fish Venkat, Duvvasi Mohan
Music: Devi Sri Prasad
Cinematography: Prasad Murella
Editing: Varma
Art: Prakash
Fights: Ram - Lakshman
Story: Gopi Mohan & Kona Venkat
Dialogues: BVS Ravi
Screenplay - direction: Seenu Vytla
Producer: D Sivaprasad Reddy
Release date: 25 December 2008
Review
(disclaimer: contains spoilers)
Story
King (Nagarjuna) belongs to the royal dynasty of Coimbatore. He has a doting mother (Geetha) and a loving brother (Deepak). He has three brother-in-laws who are after the blood of the king in order to get a share in their property. In this scenario, King gets killed when he visits Dehradoon for a project work.
Bottu Seenu (Nagarjuna) is a local mafia man in twin cities who does settlements. Gnaneswar (Srihari) is an innocent don of the city. Bottu Seenu falls in love with an aspiring singer Sravani (Trisha). But Sravani is of a soft type and she likes soft guys. Hence Bottu Seenu takes the avatar of a software engineer to impress her.
The rest of the story is all about whether King is killed or not.
Artists Performance
Nagarjuna donned three roles of different dimensions. Among the three, Nagarjuna impresses with the mass character of Bottu Seenu. Nagarjuna should be appreciated for acting in some self-deprecating scenes (like Brahmanandam beating Nagarjuna's legs). Trisha’s character has two shades in the film and she is cute.Mamata Mohandas is not the second heroine of the film. She played an important character. Srihari is cool as an innocent don who has a thing for drawing horrible paintings. Brahmanandam donned the role of a music director. His character has stark resemblance to that of a popular music director in Telugu film industry. The shot in which he poses as a guitarist for Srihari's painting is hilarious. Sunil's role is nice as the guy whose identity is stolen by the hero.
Technical departments
Story: Story of the film is the potpourri of various films.
1. The basic plot of sibling rivalry is taken from Hindi flick Race.
2. The heroine – Srihari aspect is taken from Dhee
3. The spoofs in second half are done on Chandralekha and Chandramukhi.
Some of the shots like bullet trajectory (Wanted film), hiding gun in loo (Godfather) and beating the legs of a paralyzed person (Simhadri) too sound inspired.
Screenplay – direction: Seenu Vytla is an expert in screenplay. But the screenplay of this film is both good as well as bad. Good because the screenplay is extremely complicated. Bad because the finesse is missing. The director could not evenly distribute the twists in the film. He has one twist coming in interval. And he let all other twists come in the last 15 minutes of the film. The best thing I liked in the screenplay of the film is the thread of hero stealing the identity of Sunil. It is beautifully written, but was not used to the maximum extent. The concept of fetish for painting horror images was already done in Seenu Vytla’s ‘Anandamanandamaye’ film. It is more effectively used in this film (especially the three drops scene).Direction of the film is adequate. The director could have made Srihari character little serious as he is shown as a completely innocent man. The film needs a lot of trimming in second half from the moment the gang enters King's palace.
Other departments: Music of the film is average. The songs that interested me were King title song and Bammardi. The cute walking of Nagarjuna in a beach song shot is nice. Kelli Dorji enacted the role of the rapper in King title song. The much touted 8-heroine song does not impress. Some of the steps in this song were adapted from OSO song. Background music of the film should have been better. Cinematography is adequate. Dialogues by Ravi fits the bill. Some dialogues like 'King gelavadu. Gelipistadu' are good. Few dialogues like 'King ni pattukovadam kastame kaadu, asadhyam kuda' (Hindi Don's dialogue 'Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin na mumkin hai') are clichéd. Editing should have been crisper as there is lot of lag in the second half. Production values for the film are good.
Analysis: First half of the film is alright. Second half should have been better. The climax of the film looks contrived. The plus points of the film are Nagarjuna and a few 'Seenu Vytla' kind of comic moments. The weakness is unevenly distributed content in the film. We definitely expect a better film from Seenu Vytla for the kind of talent he possesses. We have to wait and see how audiences embrace it.
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Neninthe
PRAVIN rating: 2.5/5
Punchline: 'cinema kastala' cinema
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Universal Media
Cast: Ravi Teja, Siya, Mumaith Khan, Krishna Bhagawan, Brahmanandam, MS Narayana, Supreet, Sayaji Shinde, Subbaraju, Sairam Shankar, Raja Ravindra, Uttej, Rama Prabha, Surekha Vani, Satyam Rajesh, Venu Madhav, Kovai Sarala, Melkote etc.
Music: Chakri
Cinematography: Shyam K Naidu
Editing: Varma
Art: Chinna
Fights: Ram - Lakshman
Story - dialogues - screenplay - direction: Puri Jagan
Producer: DVV Danayya
Release date: 18 December 2008
Review
Story
Ravi (Ravi Teja) is a struggling assistant director who works for a mediocre director ‘Idly’ Viswanadh (modeled after self-deprecating ‘Puri’ Jagannadh). Ravi lives with his mother (Rama Prabha) who is suffering from cancer. Sandhya (Siya) is a struggling side dancer who aspires to become a heroine. She is harassed by her brother-in-law (Krishna Bhagawan) who acts more like a broker. Yaadu (Supreet) is a goon who harasses Sandhya. The rest of the story is all about how Ravi and Sandhya realize their dreams.
Artists Performance
Ravi Teja: Ravi Teja, who is known for his hyperactive energy with lots of attitude, gave a subdued performance in this film. There is lot of honesty and intensity in certain scenes enacted by him. His dialogue delivery is also slow compared to his earlier films; that’s why dialogues like ‘tuduchukunte pothundanukunte…’ and ‘road meda penta…’ are clearly audible in this film compared to Ravi Teja’s earlier films.
Others: Actress Siya is appropriate for the role of a side actress who becomes heroine at a later point of time. Subbaraju stands out with excellent performance though he imitated Mahesh Babu at times. Mumaith Khan enacted herself as a heroine in this film. She is adequate. Supreet excels in the role of the main villain. Sayaji Shinde is very good as the hapless Telugu movie producer. Brahmanandam is hilarious as a mediocre director and he provides some entertainment. Krishna Bhagawan is good as the nasty guy. Venu Madhav is hilarious in ‘Tamil director’ get up and in the ‘deep shit’ episode. Sairam Shankar is nice as the fans president. MS Narayana, Satyam Rajesh and Rama Prabha are fair. VV Vinayak donned the guest role of himself. Ali – the aasthana comedian of Puri Jagan’s movies – is conspicuously absent in this movie.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Basic story of the film is about a struggling assistant director becoming a director. There are two ways to narrate this story. One is to make an artsy film and another is to do a pucca commercial film. Puri Jagan chose a mid path for this film. Hence, certain scenes in the film look honest and some look forced for commercial reasons. Direction is adequate in parts. Screenplay is not good. Dialogues are good in parts.
The following scenes are good –
1. The introduction scene in which heroine says that she is in the profession of side dancer because she has to feed her family members.
2. The scene in which hero explains to heroine that people love each other for their own selfish reasons. One of the best in Puri Jagan’s films.
3. Venu Madhav’s two scenes: (a). changing his name Senthil to impress heroes of Telugu by using Tamil name. (b). ‘Deep shit’ episode (adapted from one of those forwarded emails we usually get).
4. The doctor explaining how clever the hero is by explaining the consequences of cutting the behinds on goons using a knife.
5. The fans president episodes.
The following points are unconvincing
1. The real struggle of hero character is never showcased. He reaches his goal smoothly with a little resistance. Hence you would never empathize with the character of the hero.
2. Casting item girl Mumaith Khan for the role of heroine who later attempts suicide. The character of Mumaith Khan could not derive any sympathy because of the miscasting.
3. Hero would be beating up villain several times in the film and there is never any resistance from the villain. Hence there is no payoff in the climax episode when Ravi Teja repeats the dialogue ‘tuduchukunte pothundanukunte…’ and beats the villain again.
4. There is glorification of film industry. The only negative character shown in the film industry is that of Brahmanandam character titled it as ‘Idly Viswanadh’. Puri Jagan tried to play it safe by not criticizing anybody in film industry. He chose Idly Viswanadh and criticized the directors because he could justify that ‘Idly Viswanadh’ is modeled after ‘Puri Jagannadh’ so that no other director would blame him. Hence the honesty in the film is missing.
5. Puri Jagan blamed NRI crowds to be miserly people (one of the character uses the word "kakkurty") who read web reviews to save $8. (Probably Puri Jagan is not aware that his previous film Chirutha was previewed for $20 in USA and his latest film Neninthe costs $12 a ticket in most of USA centers). It is not the money NRIs care about. They are more concerned about time, efforts and have a fear of losing their peace of mind by watching a bad film. Puri Jagan also suggested that people should watch the film first and then read the reviews. Not the other way round!
6. On one hand Puri Jagan blamed the gossip sites (in a way it is justified) and on the other hand, he propagates gossips with Neninthe film that web reviewers take money and do distribution to give good rating to the movies.
Other departments: Music by Chakri is good. Krishna Nagare Mava (penned by Bhaskarabhatla) is excellent. ‘Oh I miss you’ (sung by Raghu Kunche) is pretty romantic. And I liked the way Puri Jagan integrated the narrative of the story into the songs picturization. Cinematography by Shyam K Naidu is good. Editing is adequate. Fight sequences are OK.
Analysis: First half of the film is adequate. There are no payoff elements in the second half. Certain scenes in the film are good and entertaining while some scenes are bad and uninteresting. Overall, Neninthe is more like a personal film made from Puri Jagan’s personal experiences. It is certainly not a universal film on Universal Media (production house of this film that delivered universal blockbusters like Desa Muduru & Dubai Seenu)
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Kotha Bangaru Lokam
PRAVIN rating: 4/5
Punchline: a good film
Genre: Romance/Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Creations
Cast: Varun Sandesh, Sweta Basu Prasad, Prakash Raj, Jayasudha, Ahuti Prasad, Brahmanandam, Rao Ramesh
Music: Micky J Meyer
Cinematography: Chota K Naidu
Art: AS Prakash
Choreography: Sobhi Paulraj, Pradeep Antony, Baba Bhaskar
Lyrics: Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry, Anant Sriram, Srikanth Addala
Fights: Sayeed
Editing: Marthand K. Venkatesh
Story - Screenplay - Dialogues - Producer: Srikanth Addala
Producer: Dil Raju
Release date: 9 October 2008
Review
Story
Balu (Varun Sandesh) is son of lovable middleclass couple (Prakash Raj & Jayasudha). Swapna (Sweta Basu Prasad) is the daughter of a strict and rich father. Both of them study in a residential college located at a small town of Godavari district. Balu and Swapna fall in love. Swapna is withdrawn from the residential school because her father comes to know about her love. The rest of the story is all about how Balu and Swapna try to get back to each other.
Artists Performance
Main leads: Varun Sandesh shows improvement in this film compared to his debut in Happy Days. He suited the character of the film very well and he needs to work strongly on getting diction right. His boyish charm wins you over. Sweta Basu Prasad (award winning child actress from Iqbal film) is very good and she perfects her role with her childlike innocent look. However, there is a bit of inconsistency in the dubbing in the initial part of the film.
Other actors: Jayasudha and Prakash Raj play a perfect couple like they did in Bommarillu film. However, Jayasudha's role is more meaningful and vital in this film. Ahuti Prasad is good as the father of heroine. Rao Ramesh who impressed everybody in his radical portrayal in Gamyam did the key character of a lecturer in the film. He is very good though he appears to have gone little over board in the class room scenes. This film has lots of fresh faces as friends of hero and heroine. And all of them are natural and add some value to the film. Brahmanandam character offers variety.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is about parenting. This film has got an arresting narration and intelligent screenplay in the second half. The debutant director Srikanth Addala comes up with a script that offers lot of freshness. There are many scenes and situations in the film which would have gone the clichéd way, but the director makes sure that he avoids clichéd and melodramatic scenes. He could able to conceive the emotional scenes in the second half excellently. Dil Raju offers another gem of a director in the form of Srikanth Addala through Kotha Bangaram Lokam after giving us Sukumar (Arya) and Bhaskar (Bommarillu).
Cinematography: I stopped writing separate paragraphs for individual technical departments in my reviews long back. But I think Chota K Naidu's work in this film deserve a separate para. I see Tamil cinematographers ruling the Telugu film industry and wondered why Telugu cinematographers can't come up with such stuff. Today I felt really happy that Chota K Naidu gave a fitting reply to everybody that a Telugu cinematographer can come up with a fabulous stuff. The entire film is like picture postcard photography. You can take any frame in the film and send it as a postcard. The colors and lighting used for the film are highly pleasing to your eyes. The way he has shown the Godavari bridge is entirely different from what we have seen in the earlier films.
Other departments: Music of the film is exceptionally great. Mickey J Meyer repeats his magic after Happy Days with this film. The background music and re-recording of the film is equally good. Dialogues by the director Srikanth Addala are very good. Marthand K Venkatesh's editing is smooth. Artwork by Prakash is nice. The CG work and the DI work by Prime Focus also deserve a special mention. Producer Dil Raju made sure that he spends lot of money and quality time on this film. He continues his marathon of classic hits after Arya and Bommarillu with this film.
Analysis: First of the film is decent and the second half is excellent. Like Bommarillu, this film too deals with the problem of parents and kids. In that film, they tried to balance between parents and kids, this film takes some bias towards parents as the kids in this film are doing intermediate unlike the graduates in Bommarillu. If Happy Days makes you feel nostalgic about your engineering college days, KBL will make you feel nostalgic about your intermediate days in a residential college. This film sends good message out to the society. The only thing I did not like in the entire film is that the filmmaker has shown Ahuti Prasad (father of the girl) as a bakra. Coming to my rating statistics, my last 4 rated film was Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana (January 2005), my last 4.5 rated film was Bommarillu (August 2006) and my last 3.5 rated film was Happy Days (September 2007). Kotha Bangaru Lokam film deserves a rating of 4. Go, watch the film and pamper yourself..
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RAINBOW
Music: Mani Sharma
Cinematography: Bala Murugan
Editing: Kola Bhaskar
Art: Anand Sai
Stunts: Ram - Lakshman
Story: Vijayendra Prasad
Dialogues: M Ratnam
Styling: Rama Rajamouli
Screenplay - direction: Mahadev
Producer: Sivalenka Krishna Prasad
Release date: 1 May 2009
Story
Aditya (Bala Krishna) is a loner who is depressed and he stays in Malaysia. Indu (Priyamani) is the daughter of a billionaire businessman and she studies in Malaysia. Her astrologer back home tells her the attributes of her ideal choice and those attributes meet that of Aditya’s. After a few failed attempts, Aditya accepts the proposal of Indu and gets married to her. The rest of the story is all about why Aditya is depressed and is about the real reason behind Indu chasing Aditya and marrying him
Artists Performance
Bala Krishna is pretty handsome as Aditya. He downplayed himself in lots of scenes and did justice to the character. He has very few dialogues in the first half. Priyamani is very good and she got nice footage in the movie. Srilatha got a lengthy character as the friend of Priyamani. Brahmanandam is entertaining as JB Zen (Jana Bethedu Janardhan). Deepak did an important role in this movie after King and Arundhati. Krishna Bhagawan is also entertaining. Ranganadh, Balayya, Chalapati Rao and others are adequate.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the movie is penned by Vijayendra Prasad who penned the stories for all Rajamouli’s films. The story is based on astrological predictions and soothsaying. Direction is adequate for the first timer. But he should have injected good commercial payoffs like his mentor Rajamouli. By placing the fate/destiny as the spoilsport, the director couldn’t elevate the villain’s stature. And due to lack of direct conflict between hero and villain, the commercial payoffs don’t happen. Screenplay should have been more compact.
Other departments: Music and background score by Mani Sharma is satisfactory. The family song that comes during flashback episode is good. Dialogues by Ratnam are adequate. Photography of the movie is pleasant. Art direction for the ruined/burnt house during climax is good. Producer Sivalenka Krishna Prasad made this movie with good production values.
Analysis: Mitrudu is a soft film with not much of punch dialogues and mass sequences. The plus points of the movie are Bala Krishna and a flashback episode. On the flip side, the movie lacks commercial payoffs and the most vital hero-villain direct conflict angle. There is no relevance to the story and the title of the movie. We have to wait and see how the family crowds take it.
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ADHINETA
PRAVIN rating: 2/5
Punchline: common man to CM
Genre: Political
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Satya Sai Arts
Cast: Jagapathi Babu, Shraddha Das, Hamsa Nandini, Neelima, Paruchuri Gopala Krishna, Ahuti Prasad, Uttej, Anand Raj, Chalapathi Rao, Annapurna, Siva Parvathi, Krishna Bhagawan etc
Music: Srikanth Deva
Cinematography: Prasad
Art: Ramana Vanka
Fights: Ram Lakshman
Editing: Nandamuri Hari
Story - dialogues: Paruchuri brothers
Screenplay - direction: V Samudra
Producer: KK Radha Mohan
Release date: 24 April 2009
Review
Story
Suri (Jagapati Babu) is an unemployed youth in a small town. His parents are worried because the girls refuse to marry him because he is unemployed and did not complete his graduation. They approach the local honest leader Sreeramulu (Paruchuri Gopala Krishna) who recommend him for the job of chief minister’s personal secretary. As a secretary of CM, he takes up several issues and answers them. In the process, he realizes that the CM is crooked. CM gets Sreeramulu killed in an accident. Suri contests as an independent from Sreeramulu constituency and wins with a huge margin. He accumulates a group of 25 such independents. The results suggest a hung assembly. Suri offers to support whichever party that makes him the chief minister. The CM under which he works as a secretary offers to make him CM. The rest of the story is all about how Suri brings change with the power bestowed on him.
Artists Performance
Jagapati Babu is pretty good in the role of Suri. His histrionics in temple song are good. However, he should have stressed more on his dialogue delivery (for example he said Abrudhi instead of Abhivrudhi three times in this movie). Shraddha Das is adequate as female lead. Hamsa Nandini played the role of a cop who seduces her preys by exposing. Neelima (granddaughter of V Madhusudhana Rao) did a small role. Paruchuri Gopala Krishna whose body language suits more of negative and crooked roles (Prati Dhwani, Naga and Sasirekha Parinayam) did the role of an honest political leader in Adhineta. Uttej got a good role. Siva Parvathi did a pivotal role in this movie. Ahuti Prasad, Anant Raj, Annapurna, Chalapati Rao, Krishna Bhagawan etc are ok.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The story of the movie has good potential. It is about a common man becoming a CM. But the treatment and execution leaves a lot to be desired. Direction of the movie is too simplified and mass oriented by leaving the sensibilities aside. There are many scenes in the movie that are inspired by innumerable movies like
1. Oke Okkadu: Working style of CM
2. Tagore: Unearthing the hospital scam
3. Hallabol: Hero urinating in the house of the villain
4. Karnataka elections: Yediyurappa becoming CM of Karnataka with a small segment of MLAs due to hung assembly.
Other departments: Music of the movie is alright and most of the tunes are inspired ones. Cinematography is mediocre as the movie was shot at a brisk pace. Dialogues by Paruchuri brothers are adequate.
Political twist: This film has resemblance to three political forces of AP – Congress, TDP and PRP. The CM in this movie is expected to be modeled after YSR (with election symbol being folding arms). The opposition leader is modeled after Nara Chandra Babu naidu. Jagapati Babu’s character is modeled after Chiranjeevi with taglines of the change and social justice. The get-ups of these three actors Ahuti Prasad (white panche kattu and three colored flags), Raghunadha Reddy (khaddar pant and shirt and yellow flag) and Jagapati Babu (while shirt and white flag with green bottom strip) have close resemblance to YSR, Chandra Babu Naidu and Chiranjeevi respectively. There are severe criticisms on Congress and is mild criticism on TDP.
Analysis: Adhineta is a political film that has good value in the basic premise, but gone wrong due to placid execution and too much of simplification. The director tried to get inspired by other movies in terms of taking and scenes than depending on his own strength. Agreed that movies are not supposed to be logical. People ignore logics if the narration is gripping. Other wise, all these illogical scenes appear too big to ignore. This film has some potential to do well in B and C centers. On a whole, Adhineta disappoints.
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PUNNAMINAGU
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: snake story
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sound & Clap
Cast: Mumaith Khan, Rajiv Kanakala, Suhasini, Srinivasa Reddy, Nalini, MS Narayana, Melkote, Venu etc
Music: SA Raj Kumar
Cinematography: PN Babu
Story: Yandamuri Veerendranath
Screenplay - direction: A Kodandarami Reddy
Producer: G Vijay Kumar Goud
Release date: 10 April 2009
Review
Story
A gang of snake skin poachers kill a male snake during the time of holy dance to snatch a powerful diamond from it. The female snake (Mumaith Khan) sets out to take revenge on them. But it is constrained due to certain rules. Hence it has to take form of a woman with certain qualifications. That woman turns out to be a model (Mumaith Khan) who is also a daughter of a sincere police officer. The rest of the story is all about how female snake takes revenge on the snake poachers.
Artists Performance
Mumaith Khan is adequate as a model who is possessed by a female snake. Rajiv Kanakala is alright as the male lead. Suhasini is good as the dumb girl. MS Narayana is ineffective. Vinod Kumar did the role of one of the poachers. Srinivas Reddy is adequate. Nalini is loud as the witch.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film has potential in it. But an uninteresting screenplay coupled by archaic direction makes this film unappealing. There are good commercial elements in the movie. But director could not capitalize on those aspects. However, there are still some elements that might cater to the masses of B and C centers.
Other departments: Music by SA Raj Kumar is mediocre. The remix of Ragulutundi Mogali Poda is good. Dialogues are ordinary. Cinematography is average. Visual effects don’t impress.
Analysis: Punnami Nagu is about a snake’s revenge as the title suggests. It is for the people who still want to see bhakti cinemas made on snakes. If you have such frame of mind and orientation, you may watch it. Otherwise, the entire concept, treatment and orientation might not go well with the movie lovers of contemporary cinema.
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CIRCUS CIRCUS
PRAVIN rating: NA (not applicable as it's a kids film)
Punchline: kids stuff
Genre: Children
Type: Straight
Banner: Sagittarius Films
Cast: Ajay, Chandini, Usha Sri and Manish Singh, Sreedhar, Lahari, Madhuri Sen etc
Music: Shyam Das
Cinematography: Sharath
Story - screenplay - direction - producer: S Umesh Kumar
Release date: 24 April 2009
Review
Story
There is an NRI couple who come to Vizag on a research project. Their daughter and her cousins love playing in the beach. The kids listen to the story of a lighthouse in the beach which was once used by the sea pirates. But that lighthouse is not in use any more. One stormy night they observe that the lighthouse is functioning. They suspect that sea pirates might be operating using the lighthouse. The kids start investigating from the next day onwards. The rest of the story is all about how the kids unearth kidnapping and smuggling activities.
Artists Performance
The four kids (Ajay, Chandini, Usha Sri and Manish Singh) who enacted the lead roles are cute. The guy who did the role of servant is pretty good at comedy. The ventriloquism is also entertaining. Lahari got a lengthy role and she did justice. Sreedhar and Madhuri Sen are also adequate.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The basic story has inspirations in Enid Blyton's Famous Five book series. It is a simple story that revolves around a lighthouse. The director could able to extract nice and unadulterated histrionics from the kids. However, he could not make the scenes involving adults appear natural. Screenplay of the film is plain.
Other departments: Songs scored by Shyam – Das are good. Joker and Beautiful Day songs are nicely shot. There is some problem with lip-sync in most the movie. Dialogues are adequate. Cinematography is fair and Vizag beach is explored well.
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Ananda Tandavam
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: old story
Genre: Romance
Type: Dubbing (Tamil - Ananda Tandavam)
Banner: Aascap Films (p) ltd
Cast: Tamanna, Rishab (Siddhardh), Rukhmini, Rishi, Kitty etc
Music: GV Prakash Kumar
Cinematography: Jeevan Sekhar
Dialogues: Shashank Vennelakanti
Story: Sujatha
Screenplay - direction: Gandhi Krishna
Producer: V Ravi Chandran
Release date: 10 April 2009
Review
Story
Madhumita (Tamanna) is a happy go lucky girl in a colony of a power generation plant. Her father is the chief engineer. Raghu (Rishab) is the son of a small time employee. Madhumita and her parents like Raghu and they fix an engagement with him. After the engagement, they come across a better groom (Rishi) from USA. They break this engagement to marry off Madhumita to that NRI. Raghu attempts suicide and then learns to live with the life. He goes to the USA for further studies. There he finds an interesting girl (Rukhmini). When things are going fine, Madhumita returns to his life. The rest of the story is about the complex situation Raghu goes through.
Artists Performance
Tamanna is just adequate in this film due to poor characterization. Hero Rishab’s (or Siddhardh) body language reminds us of Telugu actor Sharwanand. He is alright. Rishi resembles Tamil actor Ajith. Rukhmini is sharp and looks good in both traditional and western attires. Kitty is excellent as hero’s father.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The story of this movie is adapted by a Tamil novel written by popular movie writer Sujatha who worked extensively for most of Shankar’s movies. But the set-up in this movie appears like decades old. Hence the entire story appears silly and obsolete if we compare it with the contemporary times. The director could have made this movie as a period film by setting it up around 70’s or 80’s. Screenplay of the film is shabby. The entire first half runs on a flimsy misinterpretation of hero thinking that his father has an affair with a maid servant. Characterization is also not properly done. At one point of time, we suspect if Tamanna is mentally underdeveloped as she reacts crazily in certain situations. Direction of the film is also not up to the mark.
Other departments: Music by GV Prakash Kumar is average. Kalekantini song is the best among the picturized ones. Dialogues are adequate. Cinematography is alright. Editing of the film is bad as you can notice many jerks between scenes. Production values by Oscar Films are good. If you look at the last three films, all these films (Dasavatharam, Surya s/o Krishnan and Ananda Tandavam) are shot in USA.
Analysis: First half of the film is a let down. Second half is slightly better. But an unpopular climax fails to impress. The plus point of the film is Tamanna. The negative points are bad screenplay and inept handling of the movie. There is also lot of perversion in the movie which might not appeal to the movie lovers. On a whole, Ananda Tandavam is a letdown.
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Bheebatsam
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: lives upto the title
Genre: Thriller
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Movies entertainment
Cast: Yuvan, Madhu Sharma, Shashank, Ajay & Shafi
Music: Thaman S
Cinematography: Pavan Sekhar
Stunts: Gilli Sekhar
Story - screenplay: Yuvan
Direction: Amma Rajasekhar
Producer: G Srinivas Yadav
Release date: 27 March 2009
Review
Story
Aadi (Yuvan) is an idling youngster. He falls in love with a rich girl (Madhu Sharma). He marries her and he fails to perform sex on the first night. She humiliates him by throwing him out of her house. He has no place to go. On his way, he meets a couple of his school-time buddies. They team up and start robbing people. They get fed-up with small amounts and want to rob a bank and settle for life. They rope in another couple of guys for this job. They rob 5 crores from the bank. Since the cops are on their trail, they want to split and go to different towns by entrusting the job of carrying entire money with a single guy. The rest of the story is all about how Aadi takes sweet revenge on his wife and how he emerges as the winner.
Artists Performance
Yuvan (brother of director Amma Rajasekhar) is adequate as the underdog in this film who ends up being a traitor and a strategist. Madhu Sharma did the role of a negative touch. It’s a different characterization for Shashank and he performed really well. Ajay did the role of an intelligent investigating officer who is on the trail of robbers. Shafi is good as one of the robbers in the film. All other actors are from Tamil.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The entire second half (including the twisted climax) of the film is inspired from the Bollywood flick ‘Johnny Gaddar’. The first half is devoted for establishing three main characters and getting the conflict point ready. The story point and progression method is good. But this story is poorly handled. It is a dark film. Screenplay in the first half is not good. Second half screenplay is adequate. Direction should have been better. Too many Tamil actors and Tamil flavor rob the Telugu nativity out of this film. Story and screenplay is penned by Yuvan who acted as hero.
Following aspects in this film are flawed -
1. Heroine throwing out hero because he fails in the first night looks silly.
2. Though the technique of robbery is good, the spy cameras in bank are missing.
3. The logic behind entrusting one guy with 5 crores and sending him to different town instead of splitting one crore each is completely unconvincing.
4. Execution of killings is dealt in a dull manner.
5. Why did an intelligent cop erred in the climax of the film.
Other departments: Songs in the film are adequate. But background music is good. Taman S scored background music like a veteran. Cinematography by Pavan Sekhar (brother of Amma Rajasekhar) is okay. There are different color tones in this movie as DI (digital intermediate) is applied. Stunts by Gilli Sekhar (brother of Amma Rajasekhar) are adequate.
Analysis: First half of the film is uninteresting. Second half has interesting elements, but narration is unconvincing. The plus point is the dark story. The negative points are bad execution and uninteresting direction. This film is about cold-blooded attitude and revenge. A deft direction would have made this movie a better product. On a whole, Bheebatsam disappoints and lives up to its title.
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Manorama
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: film on humanism
Genre: Thriller
Type: Straight
Banner: Zee Motion Pictures
Cast: Charmme, Nishan, Dhanush, Pradeep, Lahari, Master Sai Kumar, Srivastav, Sridhar Rao, Ali, MS Narayana, Sudeepa, Narsing Yadav etc
Music: Koti
Cinematography: Jagan JRJ
Editing: Marthand k Venkatesh
Story - dialogues: Padmasri
Screenplay - direction: V Eeswar Reddy
Producer: P Goenka
Release date: 27 March 2009
Review
Story
Manorama chat bhandar is a popular hangout place for Hyderabadis in Koti area. Geetanjali (Charmme) stays at an apartment that is just opposite to Manorama chat place. A stranger arrives at Manorama chat and plants his bag containing a time bomb. The bomb is supposed to blast at 1 pm and it fails to do so. There are chances that it may go off at any point of time. That is when that stranger sees Geetanjali at chat bhandar and develop soft corner for her. The rest of the story is all about the bomb and the relationship between the stranger and Geetanjali.
Artists Performance
Charmme did a different role in this film. Her histrionics in the second half are worth commending. Newcomer Nishan is pretty confident. National award winning child actor Sai Kumar (Belly Full of Dreams fame) did the role of a servant in chat bhandar and he is very good. Dhanush and Pradeep (Radio Mirchi) are good in their roles. Lahari impresses with casual acting. Model Sridhar did a positive role. Ali and MS Narayana are uninteresting in this film. Srivastav (Hyderabad Nawabs fame) is mildly entertaining though he went overboard towards the end.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is humanistic. It preaches that love should overcome all the hatred developed by mankind due to various issues like religion and regionalism. The concept of Charmme watching Chat Bhandar and surroundings using a binocular from the window of her room and discovering that something is wrong reminds us of the Alfred Hitchcock’s film ‘Rear Window’. The entire Manorama chat bhandar set-up remind us of Gokul chat blasts that happened recently. The idea of animated 500 note is innovative and gives lot of relief. The dialogues written and dubbing done for the same is very good. Director Eeswar Reddy handled the first half smoothly. But he could not narrate the love angle convincingly in second half. He didn’t do the characterization of Charmme character properly. We are supposed to be sympathetic about her character, but we end up becoming bored due to the excessive preaching. The second half drags and it needs some serious trimming. The story idea and the set up of plot are good. This kind of plot needs stylish execution and sophisticated treatment. But, Manorama film isn’t treated with classy execution.
Other departments: Songs of the film are mediocre. One song is inspired from Bollywood flick Gangster (Bheegi Bheegi). Background music is adequate. Dialogues are neat. Cinematography by Jagan is average. Art direction by Ashok is authentic. Editing is fair.
Analysis: First half of the film is nice. The second half drags. The plus points are plot idea and humanism. The negative points are slow second half and excessive preaching. It is a risky proposition to make a film with limited locations and with an idealistic story with hours of time-frame. Producer should be appreciated for it. On a whole, Manorama is not a bad film though a better handling of script would have made the film more interesting.
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AAKASAMANTA
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: letting one's daughter go
Genre: Family Drama
Type: Dubbed (Abhiyum Naanum - Tamil)
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Films
Cast: Prakash Raj, Trisha, Jagapati Babu, Ganesh Venkatraman, Aishwarya etc
Music: Vidya Sagar
Cinematography: Preetha
Editing: Marthand k Venkatesh
Story - screenplay - direction: Radha Mohan
Producer: Dil Raju
Release date: 27 March 2009
Review
Story
Raghuram (Prakash Raj) owns a tea estate in Coimbatore. He married Anu (Aishwarya) – love of his life. Their daughter is Abhi. It is a lovable family with absolutely no problems. Raghuram is excessively fond of his cute daughter. He tries to guide her in every small step she takes by being with her. She finds her father to be overbearing as she grows up and she expects her father to let her go in order to find her ground in the real life. In the process she falls in love with a guy when she is sent to New Delhi to pursue MBA. The rest of the story is how Raghuram takes it when Abhi gets her beau to his house.
Artists Performance
Prakash Raj: Since entire film is told in a narrative pattern from Prakash Raj point of view, you will get to see Prakash Raj in 90% of the movie. He is an absolute delight to watch as a father. He balanced his comic timing with longing for his only daughter with unlimited ease. His body language during interview at school reminds us a bit of Mr. Bean’s.
Other actors: Three girls acted for the role of daughter at various growth levels. And all three girls look similar. The choice of these girls is perfect. Trisha and other two girls are cute. Trisha did extremely well in emotional scenes of second half. Ganesh Venkatraman is very good as Trisha’s beau. Aishwarya is demure as a lovable housewife. The guy who did the role of servant is commendable. Jagapati Babu did the role of a guy who listens to the memories of Prakash Raj in a park.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The time-frame of the story is around 25 years. The life story of a just born girl is shown till she graduates and finds her fiancée. The entire story is narrated in spaced flashback format where Prakash Raj narrates the story of his daughter to a stranger in a park. You can see certain similarities to the ‘Father of Bride’ character (Nuvve Nuvve in Telugu) in the second half. It is a difficult task to narrate a single thread of relationship between a father and a daughter. Director Radha Mohan comes up with a convincing screenplay to pull it off. Radha Mohan excels in showing sentiment scenes and a light humor episodes (especially Prakash Raj preparing for his daughter’s pre-KG interview). However, the pace goes down in the second half of the film. And the characterization of Prakash Raj character gets little confusing in the end as he keeps dillydallying about his future son-in-law.
Other departments: Music of the film is average. Cinematography is excellent. The cinematographer captures the lush greenery around tea estates very well. Dialogues are sprinkled with humor and sentiment (Abburi Ravi seem to have penned few of the dialogues). Editing is adequate.
Analysis: First half of the film is entertaining. Second half is bit slow and becomes little repetitive towards the end. Akasamantha is all about letting one’s daughter go. It is about the mental turmoil and confusion an over-possessive father goes through whenever her daughter takes the first step towards a new direction. The plus points of the film are Prakash Raj performance, entertaining first half and noble intention of making a clean film. On the flip side, the second half becomes overbearing. Producer Dil Raju should be appreciated for betting his money on a subject that lacks regular commercial elements and screenplay payoffs. On a whole, Aakasamantha is a different film made on relationships and has ingredients that appeal to the family crowds in A centers.
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SONTHA VURU
PRAVIN rating: 2.5/5
Punchline: Of Death, sex & SEZ
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sravya Films
Cast: Raja, Tirtha, LB Sreeram, Tanikella Bharani, JP, Jeeva, Rallapalli, Swati etc
Music: Saketh Sairam
Cinematography: Sabu James
Editing: Sri Gruha
Story - dialogues : LB Sriram, Nagaraju Gandham & Sunil Kumar Reddy
Screenplay - direction: Sunil Kumar Reddy
Producer: Y Ravindra Babu & Kishori Basireddy
Release date: 21 March 2009
Review
Story
Rudraswamy (LB Sriram) is an undertaker (kaati kapari) in a small village. Devudu (Tanikella Bharani) is an educated elder who is regarded as a leader of the village. When the Government approaches him to convince the villagers to sell their lands and properties as it is coming up with SEZ, Devudu convinces everybody to sell. The rest of the story is all about what happens when Rudraswamy realizes that Devudu has erred. There is also a plot of a limping poor boy (Raja) falling in love with the only prostitute (Tirtha) of the village.
Artists Performance
LB Sriram does the best role of in his career – Rudraswamy in an extremely convincing manner. Deeper philosophical dialogues aid him to make his character click. Tirtha comes up with a top-notch performance as a prostitute. Raja is very good as a limping innocent man. However, his diction and dialogue delivery didn’t match the characterization. Tanikella Bhrani is excellent in the scene where he explains the fruits of development to village men (before interval). Swati is good as the daughter of LB Sriram. Jeeva, JP and others are adequate.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is good. But screenplay is inadequate. Direction is adequate in parts. Though some of the scenes are well-handled, there is no holistic perspective to direction. The movie has some interesting scenes and some clichéd and boring episodes.
Other departments: Dialogues in this film are excellent. Some of the dialogues are deeply philosophical. There is one interesting dialogue coming up every 10 minutes in this film. The team of dialogue writers (Nagaraju Gandham, LB Sreeram & Sunil Kumar Reddy) should get a lot of credit. Songs of the film seem to be inspired from the melodies of 70’s. Background music is mediocre at the best. Cinematography is neat
Analysis: First half of the film is uninteresting because entire first half is devoted in establishing the three important characters. The real story involving SEZ starts only in the interval. The final parts of the film are convincingly done. The plus points of Sontha Vooru are writing (story and dialogues) and performances (LB Sriram & Tirtha). The negative points are slow narration and inadequate screenplay. There are a few raw scenes and raw dialogues (involving prostitute) in the film. This film is an out and out art film with not even a single commercial element. Though it would bomb at box office a big time, Sontha Vooru has ample elements to get a few awards.
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16 Days
PRAVIN rating: 1.5/5
Punchline: 16 days to Pedda Karma
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Type: Adapted (Lucky Number Slevin)
Banner: Cosmos Entertainments
Cast: Aravind, Charmme, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Dharmavarapu & Manorama
Music: Dharan
Lyrics: Bhaskarabhatla
Cinematography: Sukumar
Editing: JN Harsha
Art: Vaira Balan
Action: Analarasu
Direction: Prabhu Solomon
Producer: DY Chowdary & P. Mahesh Babu
Release date: 20 February 2009
Review
Story
Rami Reddy and Yadav are two warring mafia leaders residing in same locality. Rami Reddy kills Yadav’s son. Yadav wants to avenge his son’s death within 16 days (Peda Karma) by killing the son of Rami Reddy. Guru Murthy (Aravind) comes to city in search of a job and he crosses the path of Yadav and Rami Reddy. Yadav assigns Gurumurthy the job of assassinating Reddy’s son. The rest of the story is all about how Gurumurthy manages his way out of it with the help of a girl called Angel (Charmme).
Artists Performance
Aravind is adequate as a youngster who is caught in the crossfire between two mafia leaders. Charmme is not good in this film due to poor characterization of her role. Kota Srinivasa Rao is good in few scenes. Dharmavarapu Subramanyam and Manorama did guest roles. All other roles are performed by Tamil artists.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of this film is borrowed from a Hollywood crime thriller titled ‘Lucky Number Slevin (2006). The entire set-up in the film looks unnatural. Direction of the film is not up to the mark. Screenplay is bad. Narration of the film is haphazard. The director succeeds in opening the film in an interesting way by setting the right tone and mood, but falters dismally as the movie progresses.
Other departments: Cinematography is good and different. The entire movie is digitally graded to have blue color to certain scenes and green/cyan colors for the rest of the scenes. The duet is good, but the rap songs shot on gangs are cacophonic. Background music is good in parts. Editing needs to be smooth.
Analysis: 16 Days is an example of how bad things can go when you borrow a theme from Hollywood flick and fail to modify it to suit our nativity. The dominating Tamil flavor also impairs the movie in Telugu version. The plus points of the film are technical values. The negative points are bad screenplay and uninteresting narration. On a whole, 16 Days disappoints.
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Konchem Istam Konchem Kastam
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: suits the title
Genre: Romance/Family Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Lakshmi Narasimha Productions
Cast: Siddhardh, Tamanna, Prakash Raj, Ramya Krishna, Nassar, Samrat, Karuna, Sudha, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Hema, Surekha
Music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Background music: Mani Sharma
Lyrics: Sirivennela, Chandrabose, Ramajogayya Sastri
Cinematography: Vijay C Chakravarthy
Dialogues: Abburi Ravi
Editing: Srikar Prasad
Screenplay: Vikram Siri - Deepak Raj
Story - direction: Kishore Kumar Parthasani
Producer: Nallamalupu Srinivas (Bujji)
Release date: 5 February 2009
Review
Story
Siddhardh is a playful youngster with no emotions. His parents get separated in his childhood and he stays with his mother. He falls in love with Geeta (Tamanna) who comes to Hyderabad from a village. When she introduces him to her father (Nassar) he says the he would give the hand of his daughter to him if Siddhardh unites his parents. The rest of the story is all about how Siddhardh unites his parents (Ramya Krishna and Prakash Raj).
Artists Performance
Siddhardh is lovable in the role of a youngster. His emotions in the drinking scene are nice. His costumes suited him well. Tamanna is good as the girl who is torn between her father and her lover. Prakash Raj got lot of dignity to the role of father character he portrayed. He is excellent. There is a scene in which he acts like Robert Di Nero by saying ‘Aren’t you proud of me?’ three times (There is a famous ‘are you talking to me?’ episode in Taxi Driver film). Nassar is fair. Ramya Krishna is just ok in the role of doting mother with an attitude. Karuna and Samrat are adequate as buddies. Brahmanandam is good in most of the scenes (especially when he listens to ‘yeem’ in phone during Geetanjali spoof episode). Venu Madhav is good though his comedy is of mass type.
Technical departments
Story: Story of the film is nicely divided into two parts. The first half is about two youngsters falling it love and hence it is targeted to the youth. The interval block is about heroine’s father putting a condition. The second half is about the couple uniting the parents of hero which is targeted towards the family crowds. The whole film is based on the point that Prakash Raj and Ramya Krishna are separated. The reasons for the separation are not effectively established in the film. Hence the basic foundation of the entire film appears flimsy.
Screenplay – direction: Screenplay of the film is adequate. Direction of the film is good in parts. The narration is very slow. The director did well in second half while handling emotional scenes. But he could not get it right when it comes to the romance aspect in the first half. He should be commended the way he integrated the songs into the film. The thread of ‘crossing marks on the people you dislike’ (‘flushing the photo in toilet’ from Jab We Met?) is interesting. Vankai curry thread is also good. The characterizations should have been more consistent. Both Siddhardh and Tamanna characters in second half behave little amateurish from the scene when they quarrel about Geeta’s surname.
Other departments: Songs scored by Shankar Ehsaan Loy are excellent and they are picturized well and placement is perfect. Songs are so good that they dominated the story narration in the film. Lyrics by Sirivennela and Chandrabose are good. Mani Sharma’s background score is nice in the second half. Cinematography by Vijay C Chakravarthy is excellent. Dialogues by Abburi Ravi are neat in the second half. There are sentiment-oriented dialogues like ‘Evarikaina problem vaste amma nanna daggaraku veltaru. Amma nanne problem aithe?’ and Trivikramish lines like ‘nenu kaalu tho break veyyaledu, jaalitho break vesa’ (Brahmanandam). Editing by Srikar Prasad is adequate. Producer Nallamalupu Bujji should be commended for trusting his technicians and making this film with high technical standards.
Analysis: First half of the film is average. Second half has got emotional content. The plus points are excellent songs and emotions in second half. The negative point of the film is slow-paced narration (2:50 hours runtime). The scenes towards climax appear prolonged. On a whole, KIKK is an okay film that is targeted towards family crowds. KIKK is not a film for the morning show crowds. It is more targeted towards second show crowds (family crowds).
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Arundhati
PRAVIN rating: 4/5
Punchline: magnum opus
Genre: Thriller
Type: Straight
Banner: Mallemala Entertainments
Cast: Anushka, Sonu Sood, Deepak, Manorama, Sayaji Shinde, Kaikala Satyanarayana, Ahuti Prasad, Annapurna
Music: Koti
Dialogues: Chintapally Ramana
Cinematography: Senthil Kumar
Visual effects: Rahul Nambiar
Art: Ashok
Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh
Story – screenplay: Mallemala unit
Direction: Kodi Rama Krishna
Producer: M Shyam Prasad Reddy
Release date: 16 January 2009
Review
Story
Arundhati (Anushka) belongs to Gadwal samsthanam in 1920’s. She is known for her bravery in saving the Samstanam by killing Pasupathi (Sonu Sood) an evildoer who creates ruckus in that place. She is praised as Jejemma (named after the famous Goddess in that area). But the spirit of Pasupathi haunts that place. Another girl is born in the same lineage after 3 generations and she is named as Arundhati. The spirit of Pasupati is after Arundhati to take the revenge. The rest of the story is all about how Arundhati puts an end to the evil spirit of Pasupathi.
Artists Performance
Anushka: This is Anushka’s first performance oriented film and she is simply amazing in two roles. There are many shots in the film where the scenes from the present time will dissolve into to flashback and vice versa. These scenes are done on Anushka are crucial in the film. She has to show the variations between the old Arundhati and new Arundhati. She did exceptionally well with subtle yet impact creating performance. Shilpa and Sowmya dubbed the voices of old and new characters respectively.
Others: Sonu Sood looks deadly in the role of Aghora. His performance is excellent. A special mention should be given to P Ravi Shankar who dubbed the voice of Sonu Sood. It is a great opportunity for any dubbing artists to get a role like this. The way he pronounces ‘ninnu vadalaa … vasta .. vasta’ is extremely good. Sayaji Shinde got a beautiful role ‘Talla Sayibu’ in this film. He is completely believable in that role. Manorama is very good. Deepak is nice. Satyanarayana and others are good. All other artists are appropriately cast in their roles.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is good. Screenplay is very good. The beauty of this screenplay is about revealing the story and information in parts. There is always something to look forward to with anticipation in the film. It possesses one of the best screenplays in the recent times. Direction by Kodi Rama Krishna is very good. However, there are a couple of violent scenes that are disturbing to the family crowds. You can see a few Hollywood inspirations like Lord of the Rings, House of Flying Daggers (drum dance), Final Destination 1 (car - train episode). A couple of episodes (the thread of drum dance by the guru & establishing Arundhati as the warrior) should have been more effectively established.
Other departments: Visual effects and graphics done by Rahul Nambiar are extraordinary. Cinematography by Senthil Kumar is excellent. Background music and rerecording by Koti is brilliant. The songs in the film go with the flow of narration. Art direction by Ashok is first-rate. Make-up work is good. Editing is smooth. Digital Ingredient (color grading) is very good. Production values of this film are extravagant.
Analysis: First half of the film is excellent and the second half is good. The plus points of the film are performances, screenplay, technical values and grandeur. The only negative point I see in this film is violence (got an A certificate from censors), which is very much required for the film to be effective. After a long time, I watched a Telugu film that has both content and technology rightly mixed to give a vibrant output. Arundhati is a film which you can proudly show it as a Telugu film to all your non-Telugu friends. And it will live up to the adjective of ‘Magnum Opus’. Two thumbs up to Shyam Prasad Reddy for making a brilliant film. Don’t watch it on internet or pirated DVDs. Arundhati is a film that must be watched in a good theater with nice sound/projection system.
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Sasirekha Parinayam
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: journey film
Genre: Romance
Type: Straight
Banner: Karthikeya Creations
Cast: Tarun, Genelia, Ahuti Prasad, Paruchuri Gopala Krishna, Subbaraju, Raghubabu, MS Narayana, Suthivelu, Sivaji Raja, Abhi, Giri, Surekha Vani, Tulasi, Geeta Singh
Music: Mani Sharma
Lyrics: Sirivennela & Anant Sreeram
Cinematography: Bhaskar Samala
Editing: Shankar
Art: Satyanarayan
Dialogues: Nagaraju
Story - screenplay - direction: Krishna Vamsi
Producer: Sunkara Madhu Murali
Release date: 1 January 2009
Review
Story
Sasirekha (Genelia) is summoned by her strict father (Ahuti Prasad) to return home. After coming home she realizes that her marriage is fixed with an NRI and her wedding is due that night. She also learns that the groom’s father is money-minded. She has no choice left but to run away. She meets Anand (Tarun) on her journey. He protects her and helps her. The rest of the story is all about the background of Anand and what happens between the couple.
Artists Performance
Genelia: You would see an entirely different Genelia in this film. She did not wear any make-up. She is completely child-like and playfully innocent. It appears like she dubbed her own voice in certain scenes of the film. Her hysterical performance when she is slapped shows another shade of her. And her performance in the scene in which she banters after getting drunk is very good. She gave wide variety of expressions in this film.
Others: Tarun plays the second fiddle. But his performance in the hospital scene in the climax is ultimate. Ahuti Prasad scores again in this film. But his usage of expletives at end his dialogue is little discomforting to ears. Subbaraju dons a refreshing (away from his usual roles) role in this film. He is excellent. Paruchuri Gopala Krishna is extremely good as the villainous elder. Abhi did a significant role. Monali Chowdary is good in a cameo. MS Narayana is excellent in the tax-payers episode. Vamsi (Paiditalli from Happy Days) has a small, but interesting role.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film has nothing to do with Jab We Met film but for a couple of slight references (heroine mouthing abuses on phone and the beginning notes of Edo song). The story of the film is simple. Hence it is very difficult to write screenplay. There is only one screenplay knot that is opened in the interval. The entire second half is about how heroine falls in love with the hero. Hence there is no conflict point in the second half as audiences are well aware by then that heroine’s parents are not going to catch her. Though the initial half an hour after the interval bores you, the director turns it around with well conceived scenes towards the end of the film. The most hilarious scene in the film belongs to MS Narayana where he explains how drunkards are helping the Government. There are two defining moments in the second half –
1. Genelia’s banter after getting drunk: The way heroine questions the man’s attitude and explains the depth of women’s heart showcases the director’s deep understanding of women. The movie turns around from this moment.
2. Lead pair getting caught in an imbroglio: An unexpected scene from an unknown angle changes the complexion of the film and provides a lead to the climax.
The following episodes in the film are unappealing
1. The lorry driver rape attempt followed by hero saving heroine.
2. The court and jail episode.
Other departments: Music of the film is alright. The best song on the screen is ‘Edo’ that comes before the climax. Nice rendition by Saindhavi helps the mood of the situation. Dialogues are nice. Krishna Vamsi seems to be allocating a few minutes of his film’s runtime to eulogize certain things in his recent films. If he had lengthy dialogues about railways and Indian traditions in Rakhi and Chandamama respectively, he tells some good things about Vijayawada (only after belittling it). Cinematography is adequate. The producer should have taken more care in the postproduction (especially DI) which would have enhanced the visual appeal of the film.
Analysis: The title cards sequence (involving visuals of Maya Bazaar song Aha Na Pellanta’) is very good. The first half of the film is adequate. The initial half of the second half is boring (a common problem with journey flicks if they do not have conflict point). The director makes it up in the last half an hour. The positive points are Genelia and last half an hour. On the flipside, there is no conflict point (that creates dramatic impact) in the second half. This film has elements that can go well with class audiences and women. We have to wait and see how it fares at box office.
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King
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: three or one
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Kamakshi Kala Movies
Cast: Nagarjuna, Trisha, Mamata Mohandas, Srihari, Deepak, Geetha, Brahmanandam, Sunil, MS Narayana, Krishna Bhagawan, Jayaparakash Reddy, Ajay, Surya, Chandra Mohan, Sayaji Shinde, Venu Madhav, Master Bharath, Fish Venkat, Duvvasi Mohan
Music: Devi Sri Prasad
Cinematography: Prasad Murella
Editing: Varma
Art: Prakash
Fights: Ram - Lakshman
Story: Gopi Mohan & Kona Venkat
Dialogues: BVS Ravi
Screenplay - direction: Seenu Vytla
Producer: D Sivaprasad Reddy
Release date: 25 December 2008
Review
(disclaimer: contains spoilers)
Story
King (Nagarjuna) belongs to the royal dynasty of Coimbatore. He has a doting mother (Geetha) and a loving brother (Deepak). He has three brother-in-laws who are after the blood of the king in order to get a share in their property. In this scenario, King gets killed when he visits Dehradoon for a project work.
Bottu Seenu (Nagarjuna) is a local mafia man in twin cities who does settlements. Gnaneswar (Srihari) is an innocent don of the city. Bottu Seenu falls in love with an aspiring singer Sravani (Trisha). But Sravani is of a soft type and she likes soft guys. Hence Bottu Seenu takes the avatar of a software engineer to impress her.
The rest of the story is all about whether King is killed or not.
Artists Performance
Nagarjuna donned three roles of different dimensions. Among the three, Nagarjuna impresses with the mass character of Bottu Seenu. Nagarjuna should be appreciated for acting in some self-deprecating scenes (like Brahmanandam beating Nagarjuna's legs). Trisha’s character has two shades in the film and she is cute.Mamata Mohandas is not the second heroine of the film. She played an important character. Srihari is cool as an innocent don who has a thing for drawing horrible paintings. Brahmanandam donned the role of a music director. His character has stark resemblance to that of a popular music director in Telugu film industry. The shot in which he poses as a guitarist for Srihari's painting is hilarious. Sunil's role is nice as the guy whose identity is stolen by the hero.
Technical departments
Story: Story of the film is the potpourri of various films.
1. The basic plot of sibling rivalry is taken from Hindi flick Race.
2. The heroine – Srihari aspect is taken from Dhee
3. The spoofs in second half are done on Chandralekha and Chandramukhi.
Some of the shots like bullet trajectory (Wanted film), hiding gun in loo (Godfather) and beating the legs of a paralyzed person (Simhadri) too sound inspired.
Screenplay – direction: Seenu Vytla is an expert in screenplay. But the screenplay of this film is both good as well as bad. Good because the screenplay is extremely complicated. Bad because the finesse is missing. The director could not evenly distribute the twists in the film. He has one twist coming in interval. And he let all other twists come in the last 15 minutes of the film. The best thing I liked in the screenplay of the film is the thread of hero stealing the identity of Sunil. It is beautifully written, but was not used to the maximum extent. The concept of fetish for painting horror images was already done in Seenu Vytla’s ‘Anandamanandamaye’ film. It is more effectively used in this film (especially the three drops scene).Direction of the film is adequate. The director could have made Srihari character little serious as he is shown as a completely innocent man. The film needs a lot of trimming in second half from the moment the gang enters King's palace.
Other departments: Music of the film is average. The songs that interested me were King title song and Bammardi. The cute walking of Nagarjuna in a beach song shot is nice. Kelli Dorji enacted the role of the rapper in King title song. The much touted 8-heroine song does not impress. Some of the steps in this song were adapted from OSO song. Background music of the film should have been better. Cinematography is adequate. Dialogues by Ravi fits the bill. Some dialogues like 'King gelavadu. Gelipistadu' are good. Few dialogues like 'King ni pattukovadam kastame kaadu, asadhyam kuda' (Hindi Don's dialogue 'Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin na mumkin hai') are clichéd. Editing should have been crisper as there is lot of lag in the second half. Production values for the film are good.
Analysis: First half of the film is alright. Second half should have been better. The climax of the film looks contrived. The plus points of the film are Nagarjuna and a few 'Seenu Vytla' kind of comic moments. The weakness is unevenly distributed content in the film. We definitely expect a better film from Seenu Vytla for the kind of talent he possesses. We have to wait and see how audiences embrace it.
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Neninthe
PRAVIN rating: 2.5/5
Punchline: 'cinema kastala' cinema
Genre: Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Universal Media
Cast: Ravi Teja, Siya, Mumaith Khan, Krishna Bhagawan, Brahmanandam, MS Narayana, Supreet, Sayaji Shinde, Subbaraju, Sairam Shankar, Raja Ravindra, Uttej, Rama Prabha, Surekha Vani, Satyam Rajesh, Venu Madhav, Kovai Sarala, Melkote etc.
Music: Chakri
Cinematography: Shyam K Naidu
Editing: Varma
Art: Chinna
Fights: Ram - Lakshman
Story - dialogues - screenplay - direction: Puri Jagan
Producer: DVV Danayya
Release date: 18 December 2008
Review
Story
Ravi (Ravi Teja) is a struggling assistant director who works for a mediocre director ‘Idly’ Viswanadh (modeled after self-deprecating ‘Puri’ Jagannadh). Ravi lives with his mother (Rama Prabha) who is suffering from cancer. Sandhya (Siya) is a struggling side dancer who aspires to become a heroine. She is harassed by her brother-in-law (Krishna Bhagawan) who acts more like a broker. Yaadu (Supreet) is a goon who harasses Sandhya. The rest of the story is all about how Ravi and Sandhya realize their dreams.
Artists Performance
Ravi Teja: Ravi Teja, who is known for his hyperactive energy with lots of attitude, gave a subdued performance in this film. There is lot of honesty and intensity in certain scenes enacted by him. His dialogue delivery is also slow compared to his earlier films; that’s why dialogues like ‘tuduchukunte pothundanukunte…’ and ‘road meda penta…’ are clearly audible in this film compared to Ravi Teja’s earlier films.
Others: Actress Siya is appropriate for the role of a side actress who becomes heroine at a later point of time. Subbaraju stands out with excellent performance though he imitated Mahesh Babu at times. Mumaith Khan enacted herself as a heroine in this film. She is adequate. Supreet excels in the role of the main villain. Sayaji Shinde is very good as the hapless Telugu movie producer. Brahmanandam is hilarious as a mediocre director and he provides some entertainment. Krishna Bhagawan is good as the nasty guy. Venu Madhav is hilarious in ‘Tamil director’ get up and in the ‘deep shit’ episode. Sairam Shankar is nice as the fans president. MS Narayana, Satyam Rajesh and Rama Prabha are fair. VV Vinayak donned the guest role of himself. Ali – the aasthana comedian of Puri Jagan’s movies – is conspicuously absent in this movie.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Basic story of the film is about a struggling assistant director becoming a director. There are two ways to narrate this story. One is to make an artsy film and another is to do a pucca commercial film. Puri Jagan chose a mid path for this film. Hence, certain scenes in the film look honest and some look forced for commercial reasons. Direction is adequate in parts. Screenplay is not good. Dialogues are good in parts.
The following scenes are good –
1. The introduction scene in which heroine says that she is in the profession of side dancer because she has to feed her family members.
2. The scene in which hero explains to heroine that people love each other for their own selfish reasons. One of the best in Puri Jagan’s films.
3. Venu Madhav’s two scenes: (a). changing his name Senthil to impress heroes of Telugu by using Tamil name. (b). ‘Deep shit’ episode (adapted from one of those forwarded emails we usually get).
4. The doctor explaining how clever the hero is by explaining the consequences of cutting the behinds on goons using a knife.
5. The fans president episodes.
The following points are unconvincing
1. The real struggle of hero character is never showcased. He reaches his goal smoothly with a little resistance. Hence you would never empathize with the character of the hero.
2. Casting item girl Mumaith Khan for the role of heroine who later attempts suicide. The character of Mumaith Khan could not derive any sympathy because of the miscasting.
3. Hero would be beating up villain several times in the film and there is never any resistance from the villain. Hence there is no payoff in the climax episode when Ravi Teja repeats the dialogue ‘tuduchukunte pothundanukunte…’ and beats the villain again.
4. There is glorification of film industry. The only negative character shown in the film industry is that of Brahmanandam character titled it as ‘Idly Viswanadh’. Puri Jagan tried to play it safe by not criticizing anybody in film industry. He chose Idly Viswanadh and criticized the directors because he could justify that ‘Idly Viswanadh’ is modeled after ‘Puri Jagannadh’ so that no other director would blame him. Hence the honesty in the film is missing.
5. Puri Jagan blamed NRI crowds to be miserly people (one of the character uses the word "kakkurty") who read web reviews to save $8. (Probably Puri Jagan is not aware that his previous film Chirutha was previewed for $20 in USA and his latest film Neninthe costs $12 a ticket in most of USA centers). It is not the money NRIs care about. They are more concerned about time, efforts and have a fear of losing their peace of mind by watching a bad film. Puri Jagan also suggested that people should watch the film first and then read the reviews. Not the other way round!
6. On one hand Puri Jagan blamed the gossip sites (in a way it is justified) and on the other hand, he propagates gossips with Neninthe film that web reviewers take money and do distribution to give good rating to the movies.
Other departments: Music by Chakri is good. Krishna Nagare Mava (penned by Bhaskarabhatla) is excellent. ‘Oh I miss you’ (sung by Raghu Kunche) is pretty romantic. And I liked the way Puri Jagan integrated the narrative of the story into the songs picturization. Cinematography by Shyam K Naidu is good. Editing is adequate. Fight sequences are OK.
Analysis: First half of the film is adequate. There are no payoff elements in the second half. Certain scenes in the film are good and entertaining while some scenes are bad and uninteresting. Overall, Neninthe is more like a personal film made from Puri Jagan’s personal experiences. It is certainly not a universal film on Universal Media (production house of this film that delivered universal blockbusters like Desa Muduru & Dubai Seenu)
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Kotha Bangaru Lokam
PRAVIN rating: 4/5
Punchline: a good film
Genre: Romance/Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Creations
Cast: Varun Sandesh, Sweta Basu Prasad, Prakash Raj, Jayasudha, Ahuti Prasad, Brahmanandam, Rao Ramesh
Music: Micky J Meyer
Cinematography: Chota K Naidu
Art: AS Prakash
Choreography: Sobhi Paulraj, Pradeep Antony, Baba Bhaskar
Lyrics: Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry, Anant Sriram, Srikanth Addala
Fights: Sayeed
Editing: Marthand K. Venkatesh
Story - Screenplay - Dialogues - Producer: Srikanth Addala
Producer: Dil Raju
Release date: 9 October 2008
Review
Story
Balu (Varun Sandesh) is son of lovable middleclass couple (Prakash Raj & Jayasudha). Swapna (Sweta Basu Prasad) is the daughter of a strict and rich father. Both of them study in a residential college located at a small town of Godavari district. Balu and Swapna fall in love. Swapna is withdrawn from the residential school because her father comes to know about her love. The rest of the story is all about how Balu and Swapna try to get back to each other.
Artists Performance
Main leads: Varun Sandesh shows improvement in this film compared to his debut in Happy Days. He suited the character of the film very well and he needs to work strongly on getting diction right. His boyish charm wins you over. Sweta Basu Prasad (award winning child actress from Iqbal film) is very good and she perfects her role with her childlike innocent look. However, there is a bit of inconsistency in the dubbing in the initial part of the film.
Other actors: Jayasudha and Prakash Raj play a perfect couple like they did in Bommarillu film. However, Jayasudha's role is more meaningful and vital in this film. Ahuti Prasad is good as the father of heroine. Rao Ramesh who impressed everybody in his radical portrayal in Gamyam did the key character of a lecturer in the film. He is very good though he appears to have gone little over board in the class room scenes. This film has lots of fresh faces as friends of hero and heroine. And all of them are natural and add some value to the film. Brahmanandam character offers variety.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is about parenting. This film has got an arresting narration and intelligent screenplay in the second half. The debutant director Srikanth Addala comes up with a script that offers lot of freshness. There are many scenes and situations in the film which would have gone the clichéd way, but the director makes sure that he avoids clichéd and melodramatic scenes. He could able to conceive the emotional scenes in the second half excellently. Dil Raju offers another gem of a director in the form of Srikanth Addala through Kotha Bangaram Lokam after giving us Sukumar (Arya) and Bhaskar (Bommarillu).
Cinematography: I stopped writing separate paragraphs for individual technical departments in my reviews long back. But I think Chota K Naidu's work in this film deserve a separate para. I see Tamil cinematographers ruling the Telugu film industry and wondered why Telugu cinematographers can't come up with such stuff. Today I felt really happy that Chota K Naidu gave a fitting reply to everybody that a Telugu cinematographer can come up with a fabulous stuff. The entire film is like picture postcard photography. You can take any frame in the film and send it as a postcard. The colors and lighting used for the film are highly pleasing to your eyes. The way he has shown the Godavari bridge is entirely different from what we have seen in the earlier films.
Other departments: Music of the film is exceptionally great. Mickey J Meyer repeats his magic after Happy Days with this film. The background music and re-recording of the film is equally good. Dialogues by the director Srikanth Addala are very good. Marthand K Venkatesh's editing is smooth. Artwork by Prakash is nice. The CG work and the DI work by Prime Focus also deserve a special mention. Producer Dil Raju made sure that he spends lot of money and quality time on this film. He continues his marathon of classic hits after Arya and Bommarillu with this film.
Analysis: First of the film is decent and the second half is excellent. Like Bommarillu, this film too deals with the problem of parents and kids. In that film, they tried to balance between parents and kids, this film takes some bias towards parents as the kids in this film are doing intermediate unlike the graduates in Bommarillu. If Happy Days makes you feel nostalgic about your engineering college days, KBL will make you feel nostalgic about your intermediate days in a residential college. This film sends good message out to the society. The only thing I did not like in the entire film is that the filmmaker has shown Ahuti Prasad (father of the girl) as a bakra. Coming to my rating statistics, my last 4 rated film was Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana (January 2005), my last 4.5 rated film was Bommarillu (August 2006) and my last 3.5 rated film was Happy Days (September 2007). Kotha Bangaru Lokam film deserves a rating of 4. Go, watch the film and pamper yourself..
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RAINBOW
PRAVIN rating:2/5
Punchline: not so colorful
Genre: Romance/Drama
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Siddhardha Movies & Bharat Creations
Cast: Raahul, Sonal Chauhan, Sindhu Menon, Prakash Raj, Gollapudi Maruthi Rao, Paruchuri Venakteswara Rao, Mallikarjuna Rao, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Sunil, Venu Madhav, Siva Reddy, M.S. Narayana, Kondavalasa Lakshmana Rao, Pavala Shyamala, Master Bharat, Hema etc.
Music: Nihal
Cinematography: Santosh Srinivas
Art: Anand Sai
Choreography: Suchitra Chandrabose
Lyrics: Vanamali, Baladitya, Jillella Varaprasad, Anuradha, Sahiti, Dr. Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna
Fights: Vijay
Editing: M.R. Varma
Story: Balabhadrapatruni Ramani
Screenplay - Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers
Director - producer: VN Aditya
Release date: 2 October 2008
Review
Story
Shyam (Raahul) is an orphan and a painter who works for Berger Paints in creative department. Kamala (Sindhu Menon) is a mute girl and a neighbor of Shyam. They share a cozy friendship. Swapna (Sonal Chauhan) comes from Bhimavaram and her aim is to become a heroine. Shyam falls in love with Swapna at the first sight. He wants to make her realize her dream. He helps her out and she becomes a heroine at the cost of Shyam. The rest of the story is all about what happens when Shyam proposes to Swapna.
Artists Performance
Raahul: The audiences who watched Raahul as a nerd in Happy Days are going to find him in a glamorized way in the role of Shyam. He is adequate as an actor. He needs to be little more flexible in his body language. Hema Chandra’s dubbing is a huge asset to his character though his diction and pronunciation resembles us a bit that of Vishal (bilingual hero).
Others: Sonal Chauhan is an asset to the film. And she appears like a Telugu girl in traditional outfits. Sindhu Menon did a performance oriented role and she exudes confidence. Rajamouli surprises everybody with his perfect work as an actor. He enacted the role of ‘director Rajamouli’ in this film. He can seriously consider doing big roles as an actor if he gets sufficient time. Prakash Raj is impressive though he donned a short role. We see Gollapudi Maruthi Rao on Telugu screen after a long gap. MS Narayana’s comedy is good. Sunil and master Bharat’s comedy is ok. Dharmavarapu’s laughing treatment thread is mainly aimed at B and C center crowds. Hema’s get-up and diction in this film is completely different from her regular movies. Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao is adequate. Siva Reddy got a key role in the film and he performs well.
Technical departments
Story: The basic story line has a stark resemblance to that of K Viswanath’s Sirivennela with Raahul (color blind), Sindhu Menon (mute) and Sonal Chauhan (film star) having similarities to the characters of Benerjee (blind), Suhasini (mute) and Moon Moon Sen (glamorized role). The thread of Raahul taking money from Sindhu Menon and spending it for Sonal Chauhan reminds us of Pawan Kalyan-Preeti-Aditi thread in Tammudu film. Inspite of the above mentioned similarities, the story line still holds value of interest because of the backdrop of color blindness. Balabhadrapatruni Ramani penned the story.
Screenplay - direction: The screenplay of the film starts with an accident in the style of Gamyam. The screenplay in the first half is adequate. But it is not good in the second half. Director VN Aditya tried to make a clean and healthy film with a noble storyline. But the narration of the film is not gripping enough to make an interesting viewing. Direction of the film is just adequate. But some of the scenes in the film are old fashioned and clichéd. However, it is nice that the director cared to explain the concept of color blindness and why the hero got color blindness through the character of Prakash Raj. Some of the scenes look unconvincing like heroine coming to hero’s home for an overnight stay at their first meet.
Other departments: Music by Nihal is good. The best song on the screen is ‘Aasa Chinni Aasa. The surprise pack of the film is the cinematography. The cinematographer Santosh Srinivas did a very good job (this could probably due to Digital Intermediate too). The junior artist dialogues written for MS Narayana are entertaining.
Analysis: Making a film like Rainbow is like entering a danger zone. Stories like these need strong narration and grip on emotions in order to work. If the narration is not strong enough and if the emotions do not strike well with the audiences, films like Rainbow do not work since there is no other commercial padding. The plus points of Rainbow are a novel story point, good music and good cinematography. The negative points are lack of gripping narration and old fashioned scenes. We have to wait and see how it fares at the box office.
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CHINTAKAYALA RAVI
PRAVIN rating: 3/5
Punchline: chintakaya pachadi in new jar
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Type: Straight
Banner: Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Productions
Cast: Venkatesh, Anushka, Mamata Mohandas, Lakshmi, Prakash Raj (voice), Sayaji Shinde, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Sunil, MS Narayana, Chandra Mohan, Pradeep Sakti, Bharat (child), Ali, Arti Chabria, Venu, Nikita and NTR (special appearance)
Music: Vishal Sekhar
Cinematography: K Ravindra Babu
Editing: Sreekar Prasad
Lyrics: Chandrabose
Art: Chinna
Story - screenplay - direction: Kona Venkat
Producer: Nallamalupu Bujji
Direction: Yogesh
Release date: 2 October 2008
Review
Story
Chintakayala Ravi (Venkatesh) works in a bar in USA and pretends to his sentimental mother (Lakshmi) back in India as if he is working as a software engineer leading a fancy lifestyle in USA. His mother sets up a girl called Lavanya (Mamata Mohandas) as Ravi's match. Lavanya asks her New York buddy Sunita (Anushka) to find out the conduct of Chintakayala Ravi. The rest of the story is all about what happened between Ravi, Lavanya and Sunita.
Artists Performance
Venkatesh did his trademark comedy and sentiment in the film. He is excellent. Anushka is nice in the role of the main heroine. Mamata Mohandas is good in this film compared to her earlier outings in Telugu film industry. Lakshmi impresses in this film like she did for Murari film. Comedy by Sunil as Pendurti Babu is satisfactory. Child artist Bharat did well in the climax of the film though his character is underdeveloped. Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav and Srinivasa Reddy are adequate as the friends of hero. Arti Chabia did an item song. Ajay did a completely different role convincingly. Ali's character is like an extension of her Nachmi character in Chiruta film. Nikita is very cute with her own dubbing. Venu did a vital yet small role. NTR sizzles in 'Shava Shava' song and entertains the crowds. Prakash Raj gave voiceover to this film in the initial scenes and in the climax and his narration is an asset.
Technical departments
Story – screenplay – direction: Story of the film is simple and predictable. But the backdrop of USA offers some variety. Direction by Yogesh is partly OK. He could able to introduce and establish all primary characters well. But he could not run the story with interesting narration in the middle of the film. But he manages the climax decently. He handles some of the humor scenes well. However there are a few inspired comedy scenes like exam scene (Mr. Bean series), kitikilu 2008 (windows 2008 Telugu version forward mail) etc. There is some toilet humor too. Narration of the film is slow.
Other departments: Music by Vishal Sekhar is an asset to the film. Bagunde Bagunde followed by Enduko is the best on the screen. Mani Sharma scored background music. Dialogues by Kona Venkat are good. A couple of dialogues like 'akkada (USA) sanduko vanda software engineers vuntaru' and 'aavida data whorehousing (data warehousing) lo work chestundi' are entertaining in the first half. Cinematography by Ravindra Babu is good. He shot the USA part very well. The visuals are rich. Nallamapulu Bujji should be appreciated for spending good money on budget to make a film with rich visuals and sound by hiring the best of technicians and cast for the job.
Analysis: The first half an hour of the film is pretty good. It slows down after that and the film picks up again from the last song (bagunde bagunde). The plus points of the film are Venkatesh and mother sentiment. On the flip side, the latter part of the first half and the former part of the second half should have been made in an interesting way. The mother sentiment and the marriage ambiance towards the climax could attract the Venky's strong base of family crowds. On a whole, Chintakayala Ravi is an ok film if you can excuse bit of screenplay glitches in the middle of the film.
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