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