06/18/09 ~ Early Tollywood

6.18.2009

Film: Raju Maharaju

Rating: 2.75/5

Cast: Sharwanand, Surveen Chawla, Tashu Koushik, Mohan Babu, Ramya Krishna, Brahmanandam, Sunil, Dharmavarapu, LB Sri Ram, Rani, Jayasudha (guest role), Raghu Babu, Jayaprakash Reddy, Nutan Prasad etc

Dialogues: Jeevana Satyam

Choreography: Nobel, Tarun, Prem Rakshit etc

Fights: Kanal Kannan

Editing: Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao

Cinematography: Ramesh Babu

Music: Chakri

Producer: Kuamara Swamy Paththikonda

Story, Screenplay, Direction: Durga Shankarnath

Release Date: 18th June 2009

Sharwanand starring ‘Raju Maharaju’ has arrived today. Let us see how far the flick entertained the audiences.

Story:

Kalyan (Sharwanand) is an arrogant for being the younger brother of a damn rich business magnate Chakravarthy (Mohan Babu). He wanders aimlessly and plunges into all sorts of pleasures along with his spoiled friends. He is so selfish that he wants only pleasures for himself and never bothers about other’s lives.

Sneha (Surveen) a girl happens to encounter this vagabond. Kalyan loves her but the latter denies him knowing his character and public behavior. He becomes love-sick and becomes dipsomaniac. Noticing that Kalyan’s elder sister in law Ramya (Ramya Krishna), the wife of Chakravarthy, requests Sneha to act as if she is friendly with Kalyan for 10 days so that she would set things with a new girl meanwhile. Only on humanitarian grounds, Sneha agrees for that. But she loses soft corner on Kalyan when he commits a road accident and kills a person just in front of her and never bothers about him.

Who is the person killed in road accident? The real story starts from then. How Sneha plays with Kalyan’s adamant nature and keeps him in his control? That forms rest of the story.

Performances:

Sharwanand is at his best in this film. He is showing lot of maturity and improvement in his performance from film to film. The best point in him is his voice and dialogue delivery. He is good with dances as well. His appearance in different get ups for a few songs shown him different and proved better choice for young mass hero roles.

Surveen Chawla was given a role that has very good scope for performance. She is ok with expressions and needs to work on lip sync and required momentum with dialogue. Tashu Koushik is just for glamour quotient in the film and she has nothing big to play. She pleased the senses of a set of audiences with her hot appeal in a couple of songs.

Mohan Babu is majestic as usual with his role. Ramya Krishna also looked beautiful and pleasing on screen. Jayasudha’s appearance in guest role happens in climax.

Comedy track between Brahmanandam as Om Raj and Sunil brings some laughs.

The main predicament with this film is the presentation. Comedy should be slapstick for this sort of films. Story line is ok but the exercise should be better to bring it to the entertainment limits of audiences. Dialogues are also not up to the mark leaving just one or two exceptions. The best part is picturization of songs and Sharwanand’s performance. Production values are really good and every small trivial role was played by established artistes.

Dialogues:

Mohan Babu: “Naa Meeda Cheyyi vesthey okka kshanam aalochistaanu. Naa vaalla meeda cheyyi vesthe okka khsnam kooda aalochinchanu”

Mohan Babu: “Puttedi aado-mago telusukovaalante 9 maasaalu wait cheyyali. Aa puutina vaadu prayojakudu avuthodo ledo, asalu vaadi lkashyam emito choodalante paathikellu wait cheyyali. Anukunna lakshyam neravaruchukovadaaniki kondaru jeevitha kaalam wait cheyalsi vasthundi” (as an answer to Sharwanand who expresses his disgust in waiting)

Analysis:

First half of the film goes insipid till the interval twist. Comedy could have saved that part if worked well. Second half is heavy with sentimental dose. The hard ships faced by lead role to prove his sincerity and love are shown in the best way possible in this part. Heroine appears like a villain in this part who takes revenge on lead in every aspect. The movie ran by leaning on the shoulders of Sharwanand in this part. He carried that dexterously.

There are no films with sentimental dose in recent times. This may fill that gap. But how far the majority audiences get connected to this family sentiment has to be wait and seen. This may appeal for B,C center audiences if publicity goes stronger.

The title is obsolete and has got no crowd pulling energy. Only the star value on posters with Mohan Babu and Ramya Krishna should pull a set of crowds. Sharwanand’s performance should carry good word of mouth publicity. The plight of the movie depends on those factors.