Early Tollywood: PRADEEP RAWAT

3.13.2009

MESTHRI Review : By Greatandhra.com

Film: Mestri
Rating: 1.75/5
Banner: Siri Media Pvt Ltd
Cast: Dasari Narayana Rao, Mohan Babu, Srihari, Sujitha, Vijay Kumar, Pradeep Rawath, Rahul Dev, Sayaji Shinde, Chandramohan, MS, Giri Babu etc
Music: Vandemataram Srinivas
Cinematography: C H Ramaraju
Editing: Gautham Raju
Art: B V Rao
Story, Screenplay: Dasari
Director: Suresh Krissna
Producer: K Ramakrishna Prasad
Release date: 12/03/2009

It was with a great anticipation that ‘Mesthri’ was awaited since the buzz was it had a lot of dig on Chiranjeevi and his political debut. Also, the combination of the Congress sympathizers Dasari, Mohan Babu, Srihari generated enough excitement for political undertones. How much of it is actually true, let us see.

Story:

Palakollu (Dasari) joins the shipyard as an ordinary loader and in no time, he uses his wit and intellect to arrange for a land to the workers so that they can build their homes. As expected, he becomes the ‘Mesthri’ for them. However, he has obstacles in the form of their boss Subbaraju (Pradeep Rawath) and his brother Adiraju (Sayaji). After the death of Subbaraju, in the hands of Mestri, the flashback is revealed that Mesthri is actually Major Narasimham and he is there to take revenge on the murderers of his disciple Major Devaraj (Mohanbabu). Srihari played the role of a suspended cop. In between all this, there is a Gandhian Gopalakrishnaiah (Vijay Kumar) who helps Mesthri in one of his court cases. But who is Gopalakrishnaiah? That’s suspense. Does he get successful in his revenge seeking mission? All this forms the rest of the story.

Performance:

It was a Dasari show as is the case with most of his movies and he carries out his role with fair standards. His dialogue delivery in some scenes were impressive, Mohanbabu has a whirlwind appearance and he has his share of strong dialogues, Srihari looked handsome and though his performance was subdued, his action sequences were alright, Sayaji was regular, Vijay Kumar was average, Pradeep Rawat was mediocre, Sujitha looked sweet, Rahul Dev came and went, MS was usual, Giri Babu and Chandramohan did their bit as required. The others were filling the screen with their presence. The director has come up with a routine storyline but he managed to keep things going during the first half with a decent screenplay and good pace. However, the narration went really messy during the second half with a lot of drag and some illogical climax situations. The presentation was good as the music and the background score was impressive and the cinematography has captured the angles and the emotions correctly, even the lighting effects have been neat. Editing could have been a lot better during the second half, costumes for Mohan Babu should have been more disciplined in his army uniform, and the art department has done an okay job. The dialogues were filled with enough punch and ammunition and it got few whistles and claps from the front benchers. The script had flaws and the screenplay could have been much better.

Analysis:

The first half of the film was able to keep the curiosity factor high and it looked like the second half will have some good momentum to culminate a good climax and give a thoughtful message to the audience but then the last 30 minutes of the film was a major drag and as it is the content part was not much so the film depended a lot on a tight screenplay which went haywire during the thirty minutes. Though many from the camp were denying that the film did not take a dig at anyone, a fair share of dialogues was spoken that gave a stick to Chiranjeevi and his political role. Literally, the song ‘Nagamalli daarilo…’ looked like a tribute to Chiru, not stopping at that, few scenes with Vijay Kumar and the repeatedly spoken words such as ‘Master’ ‘Andarivaadu’ pointed fingers only in one direction. Even the TDP folks were not left out in this party as references have been made using terms like ‘Tiger’ ‘Garjana’ , Telangana issue and few other aspects. It is also amusing to hear Dasari say that the character played by Mohan Babu gets killed because he is a Dalit and that too by the upper caste. Well, the issue was about the land and caste and creed has nothing to do with the killing. Just when audience was hoping that Dasari will not show his eccentricity, he came up to his original antics in the second half and that too in the climax. How ridiculous can things get when a song sung by Dasari is played on the screen in a public meeting when the time comes to expose the villain instead of showing the evil acts of the bad man. A good thing was the song on the essence of Telugu which was quite patriotic and commendable, written by C Na Re. The film is an outright mass treat and it could have been better had the second half been handled well. Though the content part is meek, it is the presence of the stars and the dialogues that provide some solace. The criticism on Chiru and other parties looked quite evident enough.

9.22.2008

[+/-]

Raksha (2008) Movie Review

Movie: Raksha
Rating: 2.25/5
Banner: One More Thought Entertainment Pvt. Ltd & Zed3 Pictures Productions

Cast: Jagapathi Babu, Kalyani, Baby Neha, Master Atulith, Radhakumari, Subbaraju, Chandrasekhar, Rajeev Kanakala, Sathya Krishnan, Narsing Yadav, Jeeva, Melkote, Jayasudha, Pradeep Rawath, etc.

Cinematography: Surjodeep Ghosh
Background Score: Bapi -Tutul
Producer: Azam Khan
Director: Vamsikrishna Akella
Released Date: September 19, 2008

Story

Rajeev (Jagapathi Babu) is an Engineering Contractor who lives with his wife (Kalyani) and two kids. He happens to develop strife with two of his business partners and kicks them out of his house publicly when a party was going on. This pumps in a fire of vengeance in the woman (Satya Krishna) who gets kicked out by him. She takes revenge on Rajeev by spelling black magic on his school going daughter Raksha (Neha). Rajeev is an atheist and his wife is theist. Struggle and friction of opinions arise in his house as Raksha becomes the victim of black magic. Both medical science and occult science compete with each other to protect Raksha. Finally, who wins-the medical science or the occult science or both?? That becomes the climax.

Presentation

Jagapathi Babu excelled in the role of a practical man as well as caring father. Kalyani's role is minimal and there is lesser scope for her to show off histrionics. Satya Krishna has over acted and appeared to be funny instead of scary. Pradeep Rawat has perfectly gelled with the role he played.

Baby Neha must be appreciated for her performance. No wonder of she can be nominated for best child artiste award.

And coming to technical departments, the sound effects are weak which need to be spine chilling for the genre of horror. And the art work that has to be ghastly is also not designed well. On a whole, the director missed the tempo to create fear in the movie. Hence the fear factor didn't glue on to celluloid.

Conclusion

It has already released in Hindi with the title 'Phoonk' but it has been publicized by Ram Gopal Varma specially that it has more fear factor than the original. But the fact is that the fear graph has fallen down from 'Phoonk' to 'Raksha'. The main reason is the lack of proper grip in narration.

Telugu audiences generally consider horror films as B-grade stuff as many have already seen light in this genre. The quality of making and technical standards should be beyond a certain level to make it reach people in right way. Here except Jagapathi Babu Factor, there is nothing that goes in tune with the interest levels of audiences.

It is only the hype that was created by media, pulled audiences to theaters. And the crowd pulling names like RGV behind this flick, Jagapathi Babu and horror-genre would bring in a good set of audiences to theatres. But finally it cannot be called the great flick. One wise thing, that's observed here, is that it is made with very low budget and hence commercially it may go safe.