Rainbow (2008) Telugu Movie Review

Cast: Rahul, Sonal Chauhan, Sindhu Menon, Gollapudi Maruthi Rao, Paruchuri Venakteswara Rao, Prakash Raj, Late Mallikarjuna Rao, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Sunil, Shivareddy, M.S. Narayana, Kondavalasa Lakshman Rao, Kadambari Kiran, 'paavalaa' Shyamala, Master Bharat, Master Arman, Master Akash, etc.

Story: Balabhadrapatruni Ramani
Screenplay, Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers
Camera: Santosh Srinivas
Art: Anand Sai
Choreography: Suchitra Chandrabose
Music: Nihal
Lyrics: Vanamali, Baladitya, Jillella Varaprasad, Anuradha, Sahiti, Dr. Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna
Fights: Vijay Editing: M.R. Varma
Co-producers: Rajendra Chirumamilla, Basha Shaik, Sreedhar Gosukonda, Sri Adikhari, etc.
Executive Producers: G. Kiran Kumar, K. Venkata Nagaraju
Producer: V.N. Aditya
Co-Directors: Mahesh, R. Ravindra Tejaswi
Direction: V.N. Aditya
CBFC Rating: U
Date of Theatrical Release: October 2, 2008

Story

Shyamala Rao (Rahul), or Shyam, an orphan who lives in Brindavan Colony, renting a room in the home of Maruthi Rao (Gollapudi) and his son-in-law Srihari Rao (Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao) and the latter's cute but mute daughter Kamala (Sindhu Menon), is a painting artiste by profession working for Berger Paints. Swapna (Sonal Chauhan) is a girl who wants to become a heroine to fulfill the dream of her dad, a renowned stage artiste who fails as a film actor and dies in agony. Shyam and Swapna meet by accident and Shyam supports her dream and gets her into a good acting and dancing school of his friend (Shivareddy), and prepares her portfolio with the help of a professional photographer Sunil Bacchan (Sunil). Right before her first possible chance for acting, Shyam is hurt in the head due to a bad accident. As a result, he loses all the color in his life! Swapna embarks in her career as a heroine in director S.S. Rajamouli's film. What happened to Shyam's love that urged him to help her career? Did he express it to her? How did she react? Did her dream career actually take off? What happened to Shyam's career?

Performances

Rahul gives an okay performance. However, his expressions need a lot of improvement - he gives a "painful" feeling in a lot of scenes unnecessarily. The diction for the role seems good, but with thanks to his dubbing artiste and singer Hemachandra! The Happy Days boy needs to shape some more. Debutante (in Telugu) Sonal Chauhan is okay-looking and does an okay job too. Her dubbing by Suneetha is good too. However, her role is that of a Telugu girl wanting to be a heroine, and there's emphasis about the "Telugu" part too! It's a pity that the makers could not find an actual Telugu girl with her own dubbing to do this role! Sindhu Menon, the loud girl of Chandamama, is cute and expressive in the role of a mute girl. The whole list of comedians written above are not used aptly to provide great comedic relief!

There's not much comedy in the film, except that minor part which flows through the story. The only specific comedy bit that involves Sunil, Hema, and Master Bharath Kumar is in a rather bad state (with comedy being generated through the character of an obese, gluttonous, stubborn kid), though it may be enjoyed by some sections of audience. Veterans Gollapudi Maruthi Rao and Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao do the needful, in their minor roles. Prakash Raj appears in a short role as a doctor. Shivareddy is utilized well in the role of an instructor at the School of Acting & Dancing. He performed really very well in his introduction scene, and his already-popular dances imitating various heroes were used well. Kodi Ramakrishna and Srinu Vytla flash for a few seconds on the screen, star director S.S. Rajamouli appears in his real life role in a few scenes.

Technical Departments

The story is different from so-called youth films churned out in Telugu. The title is justified by the story very well. The producer-director V.N. Aditya should be appreciated for taking up a different story for his debut production. The screenplay is okay too, and tries to keep focus on the main story point all through. The taking of the film could have been more involving and gripping. Dialogues by the veterans are apt, and some dialogues are particularly good. Music by Nihal provides a good backing to the film. Songs have lyrics that fit better on the screen, in both addressing discontinuities and giving more insight into certain lines. However, song picturization could have been better, generally speaking.

Visuals are good, particularly in the song challu challu challu... which is shot very colorfully, and Shivareddy adds more zing to the choreography. naa kaLLalO... is shot totally from a commercial aspect, so much that hero's tender feelings towards the heroine are portrayed as mere lust; even that couldn't save the audience anyway, as several left the theaters during the song! Choreography for the item number (with Sangita Ghosh) salasala salasala... is appreciable, while the classical dance composition for raaraa, swaami raaraa!... falls flat, both due to improper choreography and below average presentation by the female lead. Editing is okay.

Notable Scenes/Dialogues

* "meeru telugu chaalaa chakkagaa maaTlaaDutunnaaru. ilaa aitE dubbing artiste ayipOtaaru!" (Sunil to Sonal Chauhan)
* "raaraa naa kODakaa... analEka 'Come on, my son!' annaTTundi, sir!" (Rahul to Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam)
* "ullipaayalu ... eppuDU ammaayilani EDipistaayi, abbaayillaagE!" (Rahul to Sindhu Menon)
* "naaku peLLaam pOyindani Em raalEdu... neeku moguDu pOyaaDani vacchaavu!" (Paruchuri Venakteswara Rao to 'paavalaa' Shyamala)
* "kaLLu lEkapOvaTam kannaa colors lEkapOvaTam better-E kadaa!" (Prakash Raj to Rahul)
* "gannErupappu sonta cheTTudE ayinaa jeeDipappu anukuni tinamu kadaa!" (Gollapudi Maruthi Rao to 'paavalaa' Shyamala)
* "padi vElu istaananTE photo-ki anukunnaa... maa hospital kharchulakaa?!" (Sunil to Hema)
* "kanneeLLaku color lEduraa!" (Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao to Rahul)
* "Career meeda lakshyam peTTinappuDu mana migataa life antaa out-focus-lO unTundi..." (S.S. Rajamouli to Sonal Chauhan)

Minor Overlook

* Sonal Chauhan says she was given one lakh rupees as an advance. Rajamouli signs the check for a figure of Rs. 10,000/-!

Bottom Line

Rainbow is a different story for a Telugu film, but the treatment is bland sometimes. Add to this the not-so-great performances, and the film may have to struggle to move forward. The first half is slow as the story is established, while the second half is better, but the treatment misses to strike a chord with the audience really well.

source: Telugucinema.com

Chintakayala Ravi Movie Review

Film: Chintakayala Ravi
Rating: 3/5
Cast: Venkatesh, Anushka, Mamatha Mohandas, Sunil, Ali, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Lakshmi, Chandra Mohan, Venu and Jr NTR as guests, Arthi Chabria etc
Art: Chinna
Editing: Srikar Prasad
Story, Dialogues: Kona Venkat
Screenplay, Direction: Yogesh
Producer: Nallamalupu Bujji
Released On: 2nd October 2008

There are no movies from big four stars these days. And Venkatesh's 'Chintakayala Ravi' grabbed the attention of many because of that. Let us see how the film tuned with the expectations.

The movie starts with the voice over of Prakash Raj that introduces the characters and characterizations.

Story

Chintakayala Ravi (Venkatesh) is an age bar guy who lands in USA and works in a bar as waiter. But he bluffs his parents (Lakshmi and Chandramohan) those live in his native village saying that he is working as a software engineer. Ravi's mother looks out for a bride and finds Mamidikayala Lavanya (Mamatha Mohandas), the daughter of a strict landlord (Shinde). Lavanya agrees to marry Ravi learning that he is SW engineer. But Ravi develops strife with Sunitha (Anushka), a girl in USA who happens to be Lavanya's friend. She reveals the secret of Ravi to Lavanya saying that he is a waiter in bar but not SW engineer. The engagement between Lavanya and Ravi gets cancelled with that. How things settle down at the end forms the rest of the story.

Performances

Venkatesh's screen presence is good and his energy levels have to save the movie on a whole. But he has to take care while acting in some nasty scenes in the name of comedy.

There is no big scope for Anushka and Mamatha Mohandas to give out performance and they are just ok in their roles.

Lakshmi continued her over active sentimental performance that she delivered in Murari.

Sunil's comedy is boring and bears no new energy. Master Bharat appears in a few scenes but his part is very limited to bring sufficient laughs in theaters.

Ali's Nachmi comedy is continued from 'Chirutha' which is not appealing.

Brahmanandam and Venu Madhav also failed to bring right kind of laughs.

The main reason for all this is weak script. It appears that the dialogues are written in hurry without considering the punch aspect.

Ajay's character is pale and the growing artiste of his caliber need not have done such unimportant role.

Coming to technical aspects, the lip sink of Anushka is missing in her introduction scene. Cinematography is good but still would have been better. Music is not haunting though a couple of songs are good at beat.

Direction falls below the average line. Director would have taken care of screenplay and also would have considered the importance of scenes he made. Production values are good as the film was made in USA but how far that is required for the story and narration of this standard has to be noted.

Analysis

It's an attempt to make it a right mix of mass and class elements but end up as an oddly flavored concoction.

Many scenes were blatantly lifted from Hindi film 'Hum Tum' in second half. And the most popular 'Om Shanti Om' BGM is also used many times.

The popularly forwarded 'Kitikeelu 2008' (the terms of Windows 2008 translated in Telugu) is used as a comedy scene in this film but that turned pale with no laughs.

And Venkatesh's scene of copying in exams is lifted from Mr Bean comedy. Originality is missing in large part of the movie.

The first half was dealt with some lighter moments and second half turned heavy with easily guessed climax and routine dialogues without any punch or energy.

The movie runs only on the energy levels of Venkatesh. It is true that audiences could watch the movie with interest only because of Venkatesh. But is he projecting himself in right sense with the characters he is doing in recent times? That sits as a big question in many heads. It is known that Venkatesh is known for sentimental films and piteous climax scenes right from films like 'Raja'. Adding to that these days he seems to have building up his trade mark by nasty comedy. The nauseate comedy that was scene in Adavari Matalaku Ardhale Verule (sitting to shit etc) is followed here as well. That would certainly keep a large set of audiences especially families in inconvenience. The first day audiences among masses also expressed their disgust for seeing their favorite star acting in such rotten scenes. And another aspect is Venkatesh has continued his trade mark 'pant-less scene' that was started way back since 'Preminchukundam Raa'.

On a whole, it's a movie that has to stand at the AP box office due to long weekend as there are not other big star movies in vie. But as per the material, the movie is beneath the expectations.