04/18/08 ~ Early Tollywood

4.18.2008

Banner: S Pictures

Cast:
Prakashraj
Santhanam
Kanja Karuppu
Madhumitha
Jyothirmayi
Rajesh
Ilavarasu
M S Bhaskar and others

Music: Vidyasagar

Cinematography: S Soundarajan

Producer : Shankar

Story & Director: Simbudevan

Release Date : April 18, 2008

Story:
A film with divine touch, the story is about two unemployed youth Raju (Santhanam) and Mani (Kanja Karuppu) who live in the most conjusted mansions of Chennai, Triplicane and lead a life among the thousands of youth who come in search of livelihood and making their dreams come true. However, they meet with failure at all junctions and are unable to find a job and meet their ends. They are on the verge of extreme poverty with loans even in the Tea stall. Added to this is the love angle where Raju wants to marry Mahi (Jyothirmayi) who does not acknowledge his feelings for a long time. Things get messy and unable to control their frustration, they lash out at god for bringing them to such a stage. Out of the blue, God (Prakashraj) appears and he agrees to get them out of their problems. In this process, he also reveals that the power to his godliness is the galaxy yantra which rules the universe. He spends few days and makes the two realize that it is actually their change of attitude and approach that will benefit them. Just before he is about to leave, both Raju and Mani flick the yantra from him and god becomes a normal human being while these two become gods. What happens after that forms the rest of the story.

The director who has made his debut seems to have made his mind to come up with a very clear social message and he focused so much on that aspect that he did not think about considering aspects like entertainment, mass appeal and other things. The plot was very interesting and the presentation was excellent but the narration was dull. Full credit goes to the camerawork for capturing the locales so realistically and the music is equally good though the songs are just about okay. Editing could have been more sharp and the screenplay was competent. Both Santhanam and Kanja Karuppu came out with good performances but Santhanam needs to work with more ease while expressing his emotions. Both Jyothirmayi and Madhumitha did not have much to offer as their role was limited to songs only. Prakash Raj was very calm and poised and though he missed the divinity aspect, he sure looked like one among those common people which is impressive. The supporting cast was experiences and came out with real good performance.

The movie has come across with a very intelligent and realistic way of looking at life and things get much better with the entrance of god in it. While the aim is to dispel conceptions about fate, faith and other things the focus has been so much on the conveying of messages and morals at every instant that the mass audience may find it least interesting. The movie is more of a film festival and award winning material and if the comedy and the pace of the story was worked on, it could have turned out to be a remarkable eye opener to many. There is a lot of Tamil flavour seen in it, hence the Telugu audience may find it hard to connect with the style of presentation though the story will appeal in many ways.

[+/-]

MICHAEL MADANA KAMARAJU 2008

Banner: Silver Screen Movies

Cast:
Srikanth
Prabhudeva
Sunil
Charmi,
sha Saini
Naga Babu
KavithaVenu Madhav
Brahmanandam
Abhinayasri
Kota
Ali
Kondavalasa
Kovai Sarala and others
Cinematography: P Vasu

Music: Chakri

Director: Nidhi Prasad

Producers: M Venkataramana, Yogesh Patel, Raju, Praveen

Release date: April 18, 2008
Story:

A lengthy movie, the story begins with Madan (Srikanth) a successful fashion designer who hates love and does not believe in love marriages and Kamaraju (Sunil) is his cousin who is crazy about girls. Both of them go to Goa and that's where Madan meets Archana (Charmi), who is the daughter of a retired Army major (Nagababu) and Kamaraju meets Mandira (Asha Saini). While Kamu and Mandira get along very well and fall in love with each other, Archana also is an aspiring fashion designer and through stroke of events she ends up in the office of Madan. Madan is impressed with Archana and slowly develops his feelings for her strongly. But then his ego does not allow him to express his love. Meanwhile, Kamaraju is busy trying to convince Madan about his marriage to Mandira and in this process he cooks up a story that Archana's wedding is fixed with Ravindra (Prabhu Deva) and fabricates a wedding card also. As fate would have it, Madan bumps into Ravindra who is actually Michael and gets to know Madan's feelings. He is a trained conman and listening to the story, he hatches a plan to marry Archana and become the rich owner of all her properties. So he ropes in few professional artists like Kota (Kota), Valli (Mallikarjun Rao), Kovai Sarala to act as his family. Does he get successful in his plan? What happens to Madan's love? all this forms the rest of the story.
The director who has already come up with some comedy flicks before tried to cook up a good comedy but then he lost out severely on its presentation and narration. The script was lengthy and the screenplay was not upto mark. The editing department was asleep and the camera did not have much to do in the film. the music was not that great except for the dance number of Prabhudeva. Srikanth was regular with his performance and he needs to do something about his hair, also he needs to work on his English as there was a heavy Telugu accent in his dialogues which were many in this movie. Sunil was exceptional with his comedy and witty dialogues which managed to get quite a few laughs. Prabhudeva showed lot of energy and has proved that he can be a good actor too. Charmi looks glamorous and has done her role very effectively. Asha Saini was truly a revelation as she was sizzling hot and one really wonders why she was not discovered with such beauty a long time ago. The fleet of comedians like Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Ali, Kota, Kovai Sarala were good at few scenes but appeared histrionic at few instants. Naga Babu was refined.
Though the attempt to provide comedy in all aspects was the objective, the film maker spent a lot of time trying to make justice to every character which dragged the film unnecessarily. The inclusion of so many characters may have added a lot of glamour appeal but then the plot got diluted with it. There are many unwanted songs and the audience was busy scratching heads with impatience as the second half was going eternally. The movie might sustain for about a week to fortnight but after that it is only a twist of fate that can carry the film along.

[+/-]

BOMMANA BROTHERS CHANDANA SISTERS

Banner: Siri Cinema

Cast:
Allari Naresh
Krishna Bhagawan
Farzana
Ridhima
Jeeva
Venu Madhav
Kota Sreenivasa Rao
Jaya Prakash Reddy
Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam
Tanikella Bharani
Kovai Sarala
Raghu Babu
LB Sri Ram and others
Presented By: EVV Satyanarayana

Music: Sri Lekha

Producer: Ammiraju Kanumilli

Director: Srinivas Reddy

Release date: 18/04/2008
Story:
A regular comedy masala, the film is about two brothers (Allari Naresh and Krishna Bhagawan) who hail from a generation of thieves and end up becoming one of the finest in their trade. Sick of doing small heists, they plan to do a big one and settle in life once for all. In this process, they set their eyes on two sisters Siri Chandana (Farzana) and Mani Chandana (Ridhima), the daughters of a wealthy businessman (Kota Srinivasa Rao) and decide to trap them in their love and marry them so that they can get rich in one stroke. However, they have their opponents in Kondababu (Subbaraju) and Anjibabu ( ETV Prabhakar) who are brothers and sons of the rich man (Jayaprakash Reddy). While Naresh takes the form of an ardent devotee of Lord Rama to impress Siri who likes those that believe in god and like doing godly things, Bhagawan takes the form of a blind man since Mani is more interested in orphans, blind people and other handicapped persons. From then on starts a roller coaster ride of comedy, confusion and errors which takes a climax. Who gets successful in this race forms the rest of the story.
The director came up with a subject that is full of comedy and the message is very clear that it is oriented completely towards the mass audience. Though the twists of characters are good, the narration of the plot was saggy and the presentation was lacking finesse. It looks like the editing department was missing out on its job considering the movie length. A lot of appreciation must be given to the music for coming out with some melodious tunes and pat on the back for camera team for capturing the foreign locales very well. The script could have been much better. Allari Naresh was his usual self and overshadowed Krishna Bhagawan with his performance while Farzana was the soul in the heroines compared to the fleshy Riddhima, the latter appeared as the apt pair for Krishna Bhagawan considering his size and pace of acting. Kota was effective. The others were just about okay with their theatrical performances.The movie is full of masala and comedy and the dialogues contain quite a dose of saucy comments which are a bit on the porn side. The slang that is used will appeal a lot to the mass audience. The movie could have been a lot better had the makers worked on tightening the script and making it look viable. While the audience did manage to come up with few peals of laughter thanks to some good performances, the movie as a whole will test the patience at a number of instances. The film will recover its cost with some profits but calling it a quality comedy would be unfair.

[+/-]

RAINBOW IN THIS SUMMER

[+/-]

IDEE SANGATI

Banner: Filmotsav

Cast:
Tabu
Abbas
Raja
Kota Srinivasa Rao
Sunil
Surya
Chalapati Rao
Brahmaji
Raja Ravindra
MS Narayana
Melkote
LB Sriram
Vallabhaneni Janardhan
Devadas Kanakala
Raghunatha Reddy
Hema
Apoorva
Anita
Sameeksha
Credits:
Story and dialogues – KNY Patanjali
Camera – Jaya Krishna Gummadi
Editing – Sai Nagabu
Music – John P Worki
Screenplay, Direction and Producer – Chandra Siddharth

Released on: February 22, 2008
Tag Line: Though truth is bitter, degrading profession

Chandra Siddhartha had become very popular with his film Aa Naluguru, one of the best films in Telugu in recent times. However, his next film Madhu Maasam failed to reach expectations. This time, he planned a typical story and knowing fully well that nobody would come forward to experiment with such subject, he himself decided to produce the film. The story is very delicate and wafer thin and it needed a strong screenplay to run such subject. He kept on slipping and gaining grip while running the story.
Story:
Swarajya Lakshmi @ Swarajyam (Tabu) is a middle-class woman and is the wife of a crime reporter Satyamurthy (Abbas). Swarajyam always dreams of becoming rich overnight. Murthy also has similar thoughts and he uses his profession to do favours to others thereby gaining money. Once he gets information about derailment of train and the people in the nearby colonies, instead of helping the victims, loot the available money, luggage and valuables of the train passengers. Murthy, who goes there to cover the news, along with a press photographer (Sunil) also joins the people and loots the passengers. Murthy and the photographer share the booty. Murthy goes into an AC compartment and takes out two suitcases. Murthy and the lensman take away suitcases. Murthy is so greedy and he does not allow even his wife Swarajyam to enjoy the gold ornaments. Later, they come to know that there are diamonds worth Rs 500 crore in one of the suitcases of the AC coach. When Murthy is away from home, Swarajyam opens the suitcase and finds the diamonds. Knowing fully well that Murthy does not allow her to take the diamonds, she keeps the diamonds in secret place. When he asks, she tells him that there is nothing like diamonds in the box. In fact, the diamonds belong to a top politician. So, he alerts the entire police machinery. Learning the cost of the diamonds, every one wants to take them instead of handing them over to their boss or to the politician. However, she doesn't know how to sell them. Unable to bear the excitement that she has crores worth of diamonds, she goes to a car showroom and bargains about a car. She also goes to a posh locality and enquires about the price of big bungalow. At both the places, she leaves the visiting card of her husband. This leads to suspicion and one circle inspector Surreddy (Surya) kidnaps Murthy and demands the diamonds. When he pleads ignorance, Surreddy tries to kidnap Swarajyam. By that time, the DGP kidnaps both Murthy and Surreddy with the help of his brother-in-law (Raja Ravindra). The SP (Raghunatha Reddy) calls all the goons, thieves, petty thieves and the pick-pockets and tells them to search for the box. Among them there is a clever thief called Kalavar King (Raja). He smells the rat and finds the diamonds. Knowing fully well that the police are after him and learning that Murthy is also kidnapped, he leaves the diamonds with Swarajyam. When Surreddy takes away Murthy, Swarajyam calls up their family friend and a criminal lawyer Chandra Rao (Brahmaji), whom she believes to be very honest, and reveals the entire story to him and tells him that the diamonds are with her. Chandra Rao turns crooked, takes her to her house and tries to poison Swarajyam. Incidentally, Kalavar King reaches the place and takes away the diamonds from Swarajyam when Chandra Rao is away. Accidentally, he eats the poisoned food and dies. Swarajyam takes back the diamonds and goes straight to the DIG and demands her husband with a promise to give him the diamonds. She plays tricks and escapes from the clutches of the DIG, his brother-in-law and collects the diamonds, which she keeps in the cloak-room and deposits in Lord Venkateswara's hundi. Like this, the family relieves from all kinds of problems.
The movement of the story is very interesting till the interval bang. Tabu has played her character extremely well. She is gorgeous and has been portrayed in revealing dresses and has been shown in a romantic way. Abbas is okay in his role and Sunil is okay with his comedy. All the seasoned artists like Kota, Chalapati Rao, Brahmaji and Surya did justice to their respective roles. Photography by Jayakrishna Gummadi in song sequence is a highlight. Music by John P Worki is average. Dialogues by Patanjali are good in parts.
The director, in a bid to portray the real life incidents, unintentionally degraded several professionals including, journalists, photographers, police, retired judges, and also politicians. All these people are shown in very bad light. Instead of saying that the diamonds belong to prime minister, he should have kept him as a top politician and he should have shown respect to the position. Likewise, police asking thieves to rob people and taking them to colonies for robbing is also unfair. Though it is true that such incidents generally happen in real life, it is quite improper to say truth on screen because truth will always be bitter. He should have avoided all these things.
The director, though has chose to highlight the real life incidents on the screen, he should have shown more caution instead of telling the truth straight on the face. Definitely, the film would attract the ire of many professionals including, journalists, photographers, police and retired judges. Let us wait and see how the people would receive the film.