New York - Movie Review

Truth is always gripping and so is ‘New York’ as it deals with the unforgettable 9/11 attack in the United States Of America. Director Kabir Khan has done an extensive research about various facets of the US law and administration before putting his hand on the subject. Dealing with such a sensitive and terror subject is not a matter of joke. The trauma that the people have gone through after the attack, how the administration reacted to the violence and how the attack in the US proved a curse for the Muslims are brought alive after seven years. The torture meted out to the Muslims by the US government on the ground of doubts is being lifted up in the picture. The film starts off really well and progresses very steadily. The bonding among the three friends and how they are drifted apart, how after several years they encounter with one another, the terror attacks in the USA and how the FBI deals with the turmoil and what tricks they played to catch the culprit are well captured in the film. As the film unveils, it grips your interest and the second part is equally absorbing. The screenplay is watertight; music is average but two songs ‘Junoon’ and ‘Mere Sang’ scores high. The much talked about chemistry between John and Katrina proves true. John’s torture scenes are brilliantly shot. Coming to the storyline, ‘New York’ speaks about the life of three friends Sameer (John Abraham), Maya (Katrina Kaif) and Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh). Their friendship grew up in college and they really bonded well. But Sameer and Maya’s friendship moved one step ahead. They fell in love with one another without Omar’s knowledge. When Omar came to know about their love relationship, his heart broke-up because he too loves Maya but never expressed his feeling to her. Totally heart-broken, Omar went away from the world of Sameer and Maya. But destiny has fixed meeting among the three friends again. Omar again landed in the life of Sameer but this time not as a friend, he came to his life as a spy sent him by an FBI agent Roshan (Irfan Khan). Police framed Omar of transporting illegal weapons just to arrest him and sent to his friend Sameer again. On knowing that Sameer was the suspected culprit of the attack, Omar fell from the sky, he got ready to help the police on one condition that after Sameer was proved guilty, they should not put him to death. After seven years when both friends met without knowing Omar’s intention, Sameer narrated what he has gone through in his life. He is married to Maya and they are parents of a sweet kid Damielle. What happens to Sameer after meeting Omar forms the rest of the story. Speaking about direction, Kabir Khan handled the script flawlessly. The exotic locations of New York are a treat for the eyes. Cinematography, screenplay was striking. John Abraham played his role pretty well, the expressions like love, fear, tension, pain was impressive. Katrina Kaif has come up from the beauty territory and able to bring expression to her face. It was her best performance till date. Neil Nitin Mukesh was equally good. He has grasped his role well and expressed it in the right way. Irfan Khan was as usual intense and natural. ‘New York’ ends up well. It has kept its promise and won’t disappoint its audience. Worth watching.

Evaraina Epudaina Review

A love story with a different twist

Some of the Telugu heroes who make their debut prove themselves success with first film. There are some heroes like Udaykiran achieved hat trick hits and some like Nithin suffice with two hits in a row. Varun Sandesh, who played hero in ‘Happy Days’, bagged a hit with Sekhar Kammula’s abilities. He was able to continue his winning streak in ‘Kotha Bangaru Lokam’ but got a critical remark that he was imitating Siddhartha in some scenes. Whatever be the comment, he got a chance to play in a prestigious banner like AVM Productions and worked hard to complete the hattrick. Though not a hit, ‘Evaraina… Epudaina…’ would remain an above average flick due to the debutant director’s ability in penning a good screenplay and good narration with little twists here and there.

Madhumita (Vimala Raman) is the youngest daughter in a family. She is very kind at heart, so as her family. Madhu’s father runs an old age home too in the name of his father. Venkat (Varun Sandesh) is the younger brother in a family and he was brought up by his brother as his parents die in his young age. Venkat is a very casual youngman and never cares for others. Once, he meets Madhu and falls in love with her instantly. Accidentally, he meets Madhu again in a hospital where the grandmothers of both of them were admitted. Venkat tries to impress her in many ways.

Their friendship keeps on growing. At this juncture, Madhu calls Venkat to meet her in a park and the latter believes that she called him to propose but to his surprise, he finds his friend Raja with her and mistakes that both of them were in love and decides to spoil their alliance. Again he plays another trick with the help of a girl and succeeds in his attempt. But, Venkat was again in a surprise that Raja loved Madhu’s second sister Bindu. He gets a guilty feeling for the first time for spoiling an alliance of two lovers. In order to set things right, Venkat’s sister-in-law (brother’s wife) suggests him to first win the heart of Madhu and explain her what had happened later. Venkat manages to stay at Madhu’s house by playing another trick.

He was able to impress her and Madhu even proposes him. At this juncture, everyone come to know that it was Venkat who was the culprit in spoiling the alliance of Bindu. What Venkat did to rectify his mistake? Was he able to unite Raja and Bindu, who were separated because of him? What kind of problems Madhu’s father faces to run the old age home? How Venkat reacted and taught a lesson to those who plan to encroach the land from Madhu’s father? Did Madhu return to Venkat? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

PERFORMANCE:

Varun Sandesh was able to dance to the tunes of Manisharma with utmost ease. Varun showed good ease in dances and is very flexible. But for the impressive dances, Varun Sandesh failed in the regular scenes especially due to his poor body language. Though he was facing the camera for the third film, he still needs to improve his expressions and emotions. Facial expressions should also be improved a lot instead of showing a blank face. He should also improve his physique as the present day heroes are looking for a six-pack body. Moreover, he is not so keen on glamour, with bearded face and hazy hairstyle. Vimala Raman, who made her debut in Telugu films, is okay glamour wise. She was able to maintain family image for most part of the film in traditional dresses, looked glamorous in some songs and romantic too in one song. Comedy by Ali and Venumadhav is average. Other artistes, including Giribabu, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Ramaprabha, Radhakumari and others did justice to their roles.

TECHNICAL:

After a long time, Manisharma gave different tunes to a film and almost all the songs are youthful and gave a lot of scope for dances. The choreographers made best use of the tunes and composed excellent dances which would definitely attract the young audiences and students. After music and dance, it was the editing techniques of Venkatesh which elevated many scenes in the film and in dances. These editing capabilities helped the screenplay and covered the loopholes if any in the screenplay. In fact, the movement of the entire film depended on the screenplay as the storyline is wafer thin and absolutely there is no substance in it. Though a debutant, Marthand K Shankar was able to show his prowess in directorial techniques and the screenplay penned by himself supported him like a wall in an impressive narration of the story. Cinematography by Venugopalan is okay and good especially in songs.

ANALYSIS:

Making a film is not so easy. Especially, when a big production house making the film means, the makers should get a strong feel that there is something which could convince the audiences that it is a good film. The AVM Productions, which okayed the script, maintained good production values all through the film. Another interesting point to be noted here that a producer like Dil Raju was impressed with the running of the story and took the distribution rights for the entire Nizam area. This had boosted the expectations on the film. The film is okay for one-time viewing and the film would attract the young audiences, mostly students because of its impressive narration.

Cast: Varun Sandesh, Vimala Raman, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Giribabu, Ali, Adarsh, Venumadhav, Vizag Prasad, Sampath, Chandrasekhar, Bharat Reddy, Anu Hasan, Pranav, Utpreksha, Surekha Vani, Ramaprabha, Radhakumari, Telangana Sakuntala, Kovai Sarala, Sandhya Janak, Rashmi Gautham, and others are in the cast.

Credits: Dialogues – Rajasimha, Lyrics – Veturi, Vennelakanti, Rehman and Krishna Chaitanya, Music – Manisharma, Camera – Venugopalan, Editing – Marthand K Venkatesh, Producers – M Saravanan, MS Guhan, Aruna Guhan, Aparna Guhan, Story, screenplay and direction – Marthand K Shankar.

Banner: AVM Productions

Released on: June 26, 2009

Kavya's Diary Review

An off-beat story with no takers

Charmme, who bagged a big success with ‘Mantra’ had no hits to her credit after that film. She faced successive failures and was in depression. She kept high hopes on her latest film ‘Kavya’s Diary’ produced by Manjula. It is worth mentioning here that Indira Productions bagged a national award for best screenplay for its debut film ‘Show’. Though the second film ‘Nani’ with Maheshbabu was a dud, the banner not only regained its strength but also created a new record in the entire south Indian film industry through ‘Pokiri’ in association with Puri Jagannath’s Vaishno Academy, again with Maheshbabu as hero. Though ‘Kavya’s Diary’ was completed long ago, it failed to do any business possibly because of the successive failures of Charmme. Somehow, the film hit the screen on June 5.

Puja (Indira) loves Raj (Indrajit) and get married. The couple had two children, with a daughter Amulya and a son. They get into a new house and Raj, who loves Puja so much provides her an ample space to develop a garden for herself for research. They lead a happy life in their sweet home. One day, Kavya (Charmme) saves Amulya from an accident. On learning that she lost her job, Puja convinces her to stay with them to take care of her children. One day, Raj’s brother Abhi (Sashank) visits their house for festival and loses his heart to Kavya at first sight. Kavya refuses his proposal as she fears that her obsession towards would lead to disaster and she will lose it. But Raj and Puja convince Kavya to accept Abhi’s love.

True to her fear, Abhi dies in a hit and run case. But the truth is that Kavya kills him. Here the flashback gets revealed that Kavya develops animosity towards Puja and her family as she was responsible for the death of her husband Dr Kiran. It was because of the complaint given to the Medical Council of India by Puja against Dr Kiran, the latter commits suicide by jumping in front of a speeding vehicle. Kavya becomes an orphan. Though she was pregnant at that time, she suffers abortion and the doctors remove her uterus too preventing her from becoming a mother latter. Now Kavya decides to regain her family life, by eliminating Puja and occupy her place with Raj. So, she moves close with the children and pamper them and get them addicted to her.

How her true colours revealed? Did Puja realise that Kavya came to their house only to take revenge? What steps did Puja take to prevent Kavya from taking revenge? What was the fate of Kavya, who tried to take revenge against an innocent Puja? Answer to all these questions farm part of the climax.

PERFORMANCE:

It is a surprise that the film had two heroines and a hero. At the same time, none of them are heroines or hero. Indira, who showcased her acting talents right in her first movie ‘Show’ proved herself once again by playing a main role in this film. She is good at acting and though she could not express feelings very effectively, she is okay and did justice to her role. Indrajit who played Indira’s father also did his best. He did a good job as a middle-aged husband and a father of two children. Charmme played a role with negative shades. Her character runs with full revenge drama and she showed good expressions and could show cruelty through her eyes and spinning a smile in the lower part of her face. She did a romantic song with Indrajit for one rain song and did complete justice to her role. She really worked hard with an aim to achieve a hit. Satyam Rajesh, though tried his best to evoke a little comedy, could not do so. He also played a key role in the film.

TECHNICAL:

The story and screenplay of the film was provided by Indira Productions’ unit and the director had no other choice to follow the same strictly. However, he attempted to narrate the revenge drama in a different way, which needs compliments. He succeeded in explaining the value if human relations, family relations and the value of true love on screen. He etched the characters of Indira and Indirajit well and made everyone appreciate their happy living. The director’s technique to reveal the flashback and revealing method of suspense was quite poor and the rewinding of the entire episode like flash news, resulted in boredom to the audiences. Music by Manu Ramesan is average. Though the tunes or lyrics are not foot-tapping, he excelled re-recording and elevated the scenes in the second half. Camera work by Shyam Dutt is also just okay and not very great. Editing by Mahesh Narayanan is below average and he should have sharpened his scissors to cutshort the flashback episodes. Production values of Indira Productions are okay.

ANALYSIS:

As was the tradition, Indira Productions chose an off-beat story as the plot for their film. The film-makers need a word of praise for taking a daring step to bring out a film with mere human relations and family relations coupled with a revenge drama. The story provided by Indira Productions unit lacked the comedy and the audiences could not enjoy the film. Moreover, there are absolutely no commercial elements like mass, masala songs or item numbers. For the audiences, who welcome suspense and thriller stories may like the flick, but the slow narration tested the patience of audiences. The film has nothing to offer for the front benchers.

Cast: Charmi, Manjula, Indrajit, Shashank, Satyam Rajesh

Credits: Cinematography – Shyam Dutt, Editing – Mahesh Narayanan, Dialogues – Vakkantam Vamsi, Lyrics – Ananta Sriram and Ramajogaiah Sastry, Music – Manu Ramesan, Story and Screenplay – Indira Productions’ creative team, Producer – Sanjay Swaroop, Director – Karuna Prakash.

Banner: Indira Productions Pvt Ltd

Release Date: June 5 2009

Ride Review

A true youthful film with a pinch of sentiment

After the first film proved a dud, director Ramesh Varma took a considerable gap, and got ready with an interesting and youthful film. He doesn’t took the audiences for a ride this time, though he titled the film as ‘Ride’. In order to have a smooth ride, he chose artistes who were neither debutants, nor had a huge experience in films and gained an image of their own. His plan worked out as the artistes played fearlessly as camera was not new to them and at the same time, the director was able to extract the correct performance he needed for the character from them. Finally the film came like a perfect mixture of love, action and youthful movie.

There are two heroes and both of them fight for a bike. While for one it is a passion, for another it is a necessity. Let us see who they are. Arjun (Nani) is a youth who looks enviously on others who possess a bike as he always long for owning it. His father (Ahuti Prasad) never accept his wish and always thinks on how to spend his earnings with a perfect budget. Mahesh (Tanish) is a boy from an upper-middle class family. He is an elder child of the family and he has two sisters.

The entire family survives on his father’s (Kasi Viswanath) pension. Mahesh feels the responsibility and decides to help the family by giving some financial support. Somehow he gets a job but the manager of the firm says bike is a must for the job. So his mother sells of the silver lamp posts and gives him some money. By making a down payment, Mahesh buys a motorcycle and joins the job. Unfortunately, Mahesh loses the bike on a fateful day. His job was in suspension as he doesn’t possess a bike. Mahesh finds his bike when Arjun was riding it. They fight with each other claiming the bike.

Finally, Arjun explains that he bought the bike by winning a motorcycle race. On the advice of a temple priest both of them share the bike judiciously by dividing the time. After a few turn of events, Arjun and Mahesh become good friends. When they move together happily with their girl friends and families, again they lose the bike. Who stole the bike again? What is the reason for stealing the bike? Who deprived them a joy ride on their bike? What kind of actions Arjun and Mahesh take to help each other in finding the bike? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

PERFORMANCE:

Both the heroes performed well equally. The director gave good preference to Tanish than Nani. However, Nani dominated Tanish in certain scenes, because of his physique. Tanish showed lots of ease in dances and songs. Nani scored a little more marks in action scenes and had a lot of scope for becoming a mass hero. Heroines in the film are also not debutants and has some experience before the camera. Swetha Basu Prasad, who appeared traditionally in her debut film, had got the scope to sport modern outfits in this film and she perfectly made use of the opportunity with not so revealing and a little exposing of glamour. Aksha also did justice to her role. Here also, the director chose a little more footage to Swetha than Aksha with a view to attract the youth. There is only some situational comedy but there is no specific comedy track, though the film has comedians like Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Brahmanandam, Satyam Rajesh and others. Other artistes like Ahuti Prasad, Kasi Viswanath, Sudha and Tulasi did justice to their roles.

TECHNICAL:

The highlight of the film is the music by debutant Hemachandra. All the tunes are inspiring and with fast beat. Though the tunes are good with fast beat, the music shadowed the lyric and making it not audible at times. Even the action scenes were choreographed nicely and they appeared very naturally. The portrayal of family relations and sentiment too is good. Camera work by Shyam K Naidu and editing by Marthand their seniority in profession. Dialogues by Sashank Vennelakanti are good in parts at some dialogues n some scenes are heart touching. Director Ramesh Varma penned a typical story by keeping several elements like family relations, sentiment, love, action, friendship and what not. He lost grip on the film on certain occasions, but was able to regain the grip fast.

Analysis:

The film brought out by Bellamkonda Suresh will definitely attract the youth and would remain an above average movie with more than six-week run. It also had a very good message about the mindset of the present generation youth and how parents should behave with their children and how they should give a free hand to them. The film explains that the present generation youth do not sit idle and are ready to support their family by earning money somehow. Likewise, the present generation youth knows how to achieve something instead of going for unlawful methods. Such message which run as an undercurrent made the film watchable. The production values of Sri Sai Ganesh Productions are good and the producer spent huge money for erecting special sets erected for canning of songs. Tanish appeared promising, while Swetha Basu Prasad and Aksha may gain some more offers because of their skin show.

Cast: Tanish, Naani, Shweta Basu Prasad, Aksha, Ahuti Prasad, Viswanath Kasi, Tulasi, Sudha, Kinnera, Gowrav, Brahmanandam, Hema, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Adarsh, Satyam Rajesh, Praveen, Bikshu, Deekshitulu, Rajitha, Gayatri, Ushasri and others

Credits: Lyrics – Bhaskarabhatla, Music – Hemachander, Dialogues – Sashank Vennelakanti, Cinematography – Shyam K Naidu, Editing – Marthand K. Venkatesh, Art – Chinna, Action – Ram-Lakshman, Presents – B Padmavati, Producer – Bellamkonda Suresh, story, screenplay and direction – P Ramesh Varma.

Banner: Sri Sai Ganesh Productions

Naa Style Veru Review

Rajasekhar turns angry young man again

Rajasekhar played the role of an angry young man in many films earlier and all those films were big hits. However, he had no notable hits to his credit in recent times. Though he faced successive flops, he did not give up acting and at the same time, he started trying his luck on his routine chosen path of selecting successful films from other languages. He tried his luck by selecting ‘Hello’ a Malayalam hit film as the subject for his latest film. However, the success mantra of Malayalam film industry failed repeat the same magic in Telugu and the response to his film on the first day itself proved that the people almost started ignoring him as hero.

Sivaram (Rajasekhar) is a promising young advocate. Once an innocent girl comes to him and pleads with him to save her brother, who was implicated in a murder case by an MLA and the real culprit is none other than his son. Sivaram takes up the case and successfully argues it and saves her brother. Not only that, he ensures the culprit punished. Soon, the MLA’s son (the culprit) commits suicide. Though Sivaram saves her brother from getting convicted by the court, the MLA’s men kill him in a road accident. The girl turns an orphan and Sivaram consoles her and takes her into his lap. Soon they fall in love with each other and Sivaram decides to marry her. But Sivaram’s parents (Chalapati Rao and Annapurna), brother (Benarjee) did not accept their love and marriage.

They house arrest Sivaram and the girl commits suicide. Sivaram develops hatred against his parents and brother and turns a drunkard by leaving his profession. Once he gets a frantic call from Parvati (Bhoomika) that someone kidnapped her and she was in trouble. Learning that she was in trouble, Sivaram goes to her and saves her. Parvati tells Sivaram that her family members were planning to kill her and appeals him to take her to a safer place. Sivaram takes her to his house. Parvati wins the hearts of all the family members and change Sivaram too by keeping him off from drink. Soon, Parvati comes to know from Kiran, whom she trusted in the house that her father was coming from the US and Sivaram tries to take her to Kiran.

Some goons attack them and meanwhile, Kiran takes her away forcibly. Why Kiran takes away Parvati forcibly? Who really planned to kill Parvati? What sort of benefit did they get by killing her? Who is the culprit? Who were doing all the murders? Who demanded Rs 5 crore from Parvati’s father and why? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

PERFORMANCE:

Dr Rajasekhar is okay in his role. He did justice to his role. However, he went overboard in a handful of scenes and he failed to portray the character of a drunkard properly. His face failed to suit the image of a drunkard and it appeared too dramatic and cinematic. Bhoomika looked gorgeous in the film and gained some weight. However, she has not much scope to perform and it is surprising how she agreed to the role, as there is no weight at all for her role in the film. Ali did the hero’s sidekick and he got frequent slaps from Rajasekhar for no fault of him. Brahmanandam and Venumadhav tried to tickle the funny bones of audiences but succeeded only to a certain extent. Annapurna and others are okay.

TECHNICAL

The film has nothing to offer anything great as the story has no novelty at all. It is a routine commercial formula film that would have been a hit in 80s or 90s. The director attempted to maintain a little suspense drama till the end of first half, but everything gets revealed one after the other. Anoop Rubens provided tunes for the film which turned average. The haphazard screenplay, not so gripping story, poor narration on screen proved the director’s immaturity. He stretched the first half beyond the permissible levels and tested the patience of audiences. Except the hero’s flashback, the first half has nothing to watch. The second half of the film also is not so great and the entire story was narrated like fast-forwarding a recorded tape in the climax. An average audience could not understand what was happening and how the hero is narrating the story. Editing of the story by a senior like Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao also failed to save the audiences.

ANALYSIS:

It is nothing but a routine commercial formula film and those who look for something novel would definitely doesn’t like this film. At least choreography of songs too was atrocious and appeared like a drill by a school student. A person who is about 35, and moreover the person is an advocate by profession is not expected to dance like that on the screen. The entire film was totally cinematic and has nothing near to nativity. A film which you can conveniently ignore as it has neither any entertainment value nor had a great story.

Cast: Rajasekhar, Bhoomika, Vijaykumar, Chalapati Rao, Ahuti Prasad, Nizhalgal Ravi, Benarjee, Giribabu, Brahmanandam, Ali, Venumadhav, Jeeva, Annapurna, Surekhavani and others

Credits: Story – Dishira Film Unit, Script assistance – Gopi-Mohan, Dialogues – Kona Venkat, Cinematography – N. Arunkumar, Music – Anoop Rubens, Editing – Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao, Presents – Maganti Sunita, Producer – Maganti Gopinath, Screenplay and direction – G Ramprasad

Banner: Dishira Productions

Released on: June 12, 2009

Sumanth's Boni Review

Director’s immaturity turns a bane for producer

Boni suffered several drawbacks. The producer, director and the heroine were debutants. Though the storyline chosen for the subject is a little off-beat and different from routine love stories with action in its backdrop, the immaturity of the director proved a bane and cost heavily for the first-time producer Ramana Gogula. Especially the haphazard screenplay and imperfect presentation of the story on the celluloid tested the patience of the audiences completely.

Pragati (Kriti Karbanda) is the daughter of agriculture minister (Ahuti Prasad). She had great thoughts for the uplift of the poor villagers and launches a non-profit based NGO. Once she comes to know that the farmers of an entire village owed money to a money-lender, who gets the decree from court to take over the lands of the poor farmers. As per the court order the farmers had to repay Rs 4 crore to the money lender or lose their lands. Pragati wants to help them and appeals to her father to help them.

However, being a politician he behaves like an opportunist. In order to complete her promise, Pragati wants to enact a kidnap drama and demand Rs 4 crore as ransom from her father to help the villagers. But the same drama plan boomerangs and some other ruffians take her away. However, she keeps believing that it was all her drama plan. Soon she realizes that it was not the drama as was planned by her but she was kidnapped really. DD (Sumant) and Chinna (Trinetrudu) are childhood friends and both of them are orphans and were brought up in an orphanage. Their wish is to start a Pulihora centre.

For that purpose, they save money but a girl cheats DD and runs away with that money. So, DD and Chinna kidnaps Pragati to earn money for Pulihora centre. Did they able to begin Pulihora Centre? Did they demand ransom from Pragati’s father? Did he accept their demand? Who is really behind the kidnap of Pragati? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

PERFORMANCE

Sumant, though tried to change his image from a soft hero to action hero, once again failed in his attempt. But he was able to manage in the hero’s role. Tanikella Bharani and Jayaprakash Reddy are okay in their roles. Once again, Chandramohan played a negative role in the movie. The heroine, though a debutant, tried to imitate the Bollywood top heroines like Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone. She failed to perform nor has the physique to attract the young audiences.

TECHNICAL:

The director’s immaturity in direction was glaring in each and every frame in the movie. He doesn’t know how to present the subject which was in his mind properly and in a bid to present the film in a different style, scripted the screenplay in a haphazard manner and the end result is a big puzzle. The story of the film is no doubt, novel and off beat, which is different from routine love subjects with action in its backdrop. Nobody knows what he is doing. The director, the hero, the villain and the audiences were in a state of confusion as to what was happening on the screen. Though a couple of songs are okay, not many songs are catchy. It is not known, why the hero and heroine are running and why the villains are chasing and it is absurd how the entire police administration kept mum when the daughter of a minister was kidnapped. Moreover, a police inspector executes the kidnap drama.

ANALYSIS:

The narration is pathetic. The screenplay is slapdash and the entire running of the film is a complete mess. But for the basic storyline, the film has nothing perfect. With no commercial values, the film though appears to have a mass touch failed to appease the mass audiences nor the young audiences.

Cast: Sumanth, Kriti, Trinetrudu, Tanikella Bharani, Jayaprakash Reddy, Satya Prakash, Ahuti Prasad, Chandramohan, Babloo, Venu, Sutti Velu, Sudha, Surekhavani, and others.

Credits: Lyrics – Ramajogaiah Sastry, Cinematography – Andrew, Music and producer – Ramana Gogula, Screenplay and direction – Raj Tippalla.

Banner: Green Mangoes Cinema

Raju Maharaju Review

Mohanbabu, after a long time realized that his heroism is getting faded and time has come to give way to fresh faces for the hero roles. He made a right choice by doing a nice character as an elder brother’s role by maintaining an identity of his own and at the same time made way for an young pair to do the routine commercial formula dances to suit the taste of the youth and mass audiences. His formula worked out perfectly and the film came out as ‘Raju Maharaju’, a complete family, sentimental drama which was interlaced with a triangular love and revenge story.

Vijaykumar (Vijaykumar) is a contractor. He is very kind at heart and doesn’t mind to lose money for the sake of helping some one in need. JP (Jayaprakash Reddy) is his rival, who could not beat him in bagging contracts. In order to bag one contract, JP plays the sentimental drama by pushing a just born child on road. Vijaykumar moved at the plight of the child admits him to a hospital, thereby loses a contract worth some lakhs of rupees. He takes the child to his house and gives it to his son Chakravarthy (Mohanbabu) stating to look after him as a brother. Chakravarthy names him as Kalyan (Sarwanand). Chakravarthy grows up and also become a good contractor on the lines of his father and JP’s rivalry also grows up. Ramya (Ramyakrishna) marries Chakravarthy.

Meanwhile, Kalyan turns arrogant because of richness and thinks that he could do anything with money. Once he comes across Sneha (Survin Chawla), a girl with social consciousness, and falls in love with her at first sight. But Sneha, who comes to know about his bad habits keeps avoiding him. As Ramya pampers Kalyan, appeals to Sneha to befriend with him for a few days and she would change his Kalyan’s mind in the meantime. After Kalyan and Sneha start moving closer to each other, Kalyan hits a person with his jeep and did not feel bad for it, which forces Sneha to hate him again. Incidentally, the person whom Kalyan dashed is none other than Sneha’s father (Nazar). He dies in the incident and police arrest Kalyan. In order to withdraw the case, Sneha demands their entire property and Chakravarthy gives up all the property for the sake of honesty. From that time, Kalyan realizes the value of love. He also comes to know that he is not the real brother but an orphan brought up by Chakravarthy and his father. This enhances Kalyan’s responsibility towards Chakravarthy further. With vengeance Sneha makes Kalyan lose his job. It takes another twist and Chakravarthy suffers stroke. In order to get him operated, Kalyan hypothecates his certificates and bring money. But the doctor lies about that money.

But Sneha gets the certificates and destroys them. With no option left, Kalyan sells off his kidney and JP kidnaps the person who vows him the money. Finally, Kalyan readies to embrace the death by giving his body for pharmaceutical experiment and brings the money and completes the surgery to Chakravarthy and gets him healthy. In the climax, Sneha reveals that she did not all those things with vengeance but only to wake up the real human being in Kalyan, and make him to love all the people around him. The film ends on a happy note.

Plus:

Producer Pathikonda Kumaraswamy should be complimented first for bringing out such a good family subject on the Telugu screen after a long time. The major plus point in the film is the story which was prepared with elements like family, human relations, sentiment, perseverance in extension of love, the relationship between brothers, sister-in-law, sister. At the same time, the triangular love story with a young hero and two heroines. Circumstantial villainy by a girl, another girl who still loves a person, despite knowing that he loved some other girl and also lost all his property, the greatness of true friendship and the director’s ability to keep romantic songs at perfect timing, when the audiences are getting bored with total seriousness of the film. Tashu Kaushik’s exposure of the glamour would be a feast to the eyes of young and mass audiences, while Survin Chawla’s girl-at-next door kind of role has quite contrast. Villainy by Jayaprakash Reddy is of course appeared routine.

Minus:

Comedy by Brahmanandam, Sunil, MS Narayana and others failed to tickle the funny bones of the audiences at expected levels. The entire first half of the film was devoted to the characterization of the young hero and to run the basic love drama. The audiences who watched the first half would come to a conclusion that the film has nothing much to offer and it is just an average movie at the most. However, the entire crux of the film was completely filled in the second half with 100 per cent drama with different twists. This act of director made some of the audiences lose a nice film, as they walked out of the theatres feeling the film has no depth. Even the climax was also not properly established. It is not that easy for a person, who donated his kidney to move out of the operation theatres in few hours after surgery. It is also impossible for a person who donated his kidney to offer his body for pharmaceutical experiments. It is also unimaginable that a person who got operated upon for kidney removal to fight with goons with so much energy. But all these happen in a cinematic manner.

REMARKS:

Sarwanand showed a balanced performance in the second half. After the success of ‘Gamyam’, he realized his responsibility in making a film success which would be possible only with perfect body language and performance. Music by Chakri is average and the tunes are not that great. However, the choreography of romantic songs in the combination of Sarwanand and Tashu Kaushik was perfect, while the song between Sarwanand and Surwin Chawla is neat with no exposures. The only family song involving all the lead artistes was choreographed well. As a whole, the Tollywood had got one more nice family drama which could be watched by the entire family by sitting together. Though not a must watch film, there won’t be any harm in watching the film in terms of entertainment and time.

Cast: Dr Mohanbabu, Ramyakrishna, Sarvanand, Survin Chawla and Tashu Kaushik, Jayasudha (guest appearance) Rani, Dr Brahmanandam, Chandramohan, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, LB Sriram, Raghubabu, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Nazar, Jayaprakash Reddy, Vijayakumar, MS Narayana, Sunil, Sudha, Bhargavi, Surekhavani, Delhi Rajeswari and others

Music – Chakri, Camera – Rameshbabu, Lyrics – Bhaskarabhatla, Ramajogaiah Sastry and Kandikonda, Action – Kanal Kannan, Editing – Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao, Choreography – Prem Rakshit and Brinda, Producer – Kumaraswamy Pathikonda, Story, screenplay and direction are by Durga Shankaranath.

Banner: Sri Kumaraswamy Productions

Release Date: June 18th 2008