Meena Starring VENGAMAMBA (2009) Telugu Movie Review

Film: VENGAMAMBA

Rating: 3/5

Banner: V M C Films

Cast: Meena, Sarath Babu, Saikiran, Sana, Subbaraya Sarma, Ashok Rao, Ananth, Sudha, Sivaparvathy, Ranganath, Sriram and others

Music: M M Keeravani

Cinematography: P R K Raju

Director: Uday Bhaskar

Producer: Doraiswamy Raju

Release Date: July 17, 2009

Story:

A holy tale, the story begins on the backdrop of Tarigonda with the life of Vengamamba (meena) who is the darling daughter of Krishnaiah (sarath Babu) and Mangamamba (sudha). However, their dreams of seeing their daughter married does not help as right from childhood, she is into the trance of lord Venkateswara (sai kiran). She gets married to Venkata Chalapathy of Injeti family. However, he dies due to a snake bite. From then on, Vengamamba gets into a complete service to the god and begins to write songs and various poems on the lord. She has her own form of obstructions in the form of Kainkaryam (ananth), Dikshitulu (ashok rao) but then divine help is always there to assist her pious heart. A chance sequence takes her to Tirumala and what happens from there forms the rest of the story.

Presentation:

The director has come up with a neat storyline and both the presentation and narrative were good. The dialogues were simple, the script was written without much flaws and the screenplay was sensible. Music played a key role and it did well while cinematography was neat. Graphics were excellent. The make up department could have been better since the puffing up was a bit on the higher side. Also, the art department should have brought more authentic feel to it. Editing was crisp. Costumes were apt. meena did a fabulous job and showed enough maturity in her role. Saikiran and Sana were the perfect choices. Saikiran has shown good potential, Sarath Babu was elegant, Subbaraya Sarma was impressive, Ananth was good, L B Sriram was okay. The others did their bit and contributed.

Conclusion:

The film has been a take on the real life story of the famous Vengamamba of Tarigonda. The makers have taken an authentic touch to it and while the first half revolves around her childhood to her younger days, the second half goes about with her divine journey and spiritual awareness. The film has got some real good technical effects and with some decent performances by the cast, it was neat. The film will surely appeal to the family audience and those who are interested in divine flicks. Maybe few learning points for the youth and the mass audience as well. This will be a decent run at the box office with some positive word of mouth.

Bharatstudent Verdict : Divine and neat, recommended

Ooha Chitram (2009) Movie Review by Bharatstudent

Film: OOHA CHITRAM

Rating: 1.25/5

Banner: Likith Arts

Cast: Vamsi Krishna, Kaveri Jha, Jeeva, Giri Babu, Krishna Bhagawan, Surya, Babloo, Vijay and others

Music: Siva K Nandigam

Cinematography: V N Suresh Kumar

Director: Satya

Producer: K Paidi Babu

Release date: 17/07/2009

Story:

A good tale gone bad, the story begins with Vikram (vamsi) who is a police inspector but then he goes through a bumpy ride as his information is wrong and he is at the wrong place all times. Things take a turn when he checks the purse of a police officer and this leads him to suspension. Vikram meets Keerthi (kaveri) at that time and soon they fall in love. After a while, Keerthi introduces him to a website 'May I Help You'. Here, Vikram meets Raj and the latter gives him a plan so that Vikram can prove his intelligence and get back to the department. However, there are many complications that take place and soon Vikram realizes that Raj has got a mystery behind him. What happens from there forms the rest of the story.

Presentation:

The director has attempted to come up with a storyline that has got many elements and that's why he could not put up with the presentation and the narrative as well. The dialogues were dull, the script was written shoddily and screenplay was poor. Music was a major disappointment and the cinematography was stale. Editing was completely disastrous. Art and costumes were okay and made their presence felt. Coming to the cast, Vamsi Krishna was poor as he was not able to express himself and his body language was poor. His physique was good and that's where it starts and ends. Kaveri Jha was yet again seductive to the core but then the stylists should work on giving her different looks. Jeeva was okay, Giri Babu was regular, Krishna Bhagawan was not upto the mark, the others came and went.

Conclusion:

The film attempted to come up with various elements in one go and this made a mess of the movie. While the first half takes off on a different note, somewhere down the line, it loses track of the plot and leaves the audience confused. The second half takes a different turn and it must be said that editing was nowhere to be seen and there are many things happening at one go. The film is poor in performances and also in technical aspects. This will sink in box office in just a few days. The choice of the lead character was wrong and there was no proper comedy.

Bharatstudent verdict: Can be ignored

Kalavaramaye Madilo (2009) Movie Review by Greatandhra

Film: Kalavaramaye Madilo

Rating: 2/5

Cast: Kamal Kamaraju, Colors Swathy, Vikram Gokhle, Tanikella Bharani, Delhi Rajeshwari etc

Music: Sarath Vasudevan

Camera: Rajendra

Dialogues: Lakshmi Bhopal

Lyrics: Vanamali

Editing: Basva Paidireddy

Choreography: Nikson and Sridhar

Art: Madhu Rebba

Pro: Lagadapati Babu Rao

Producer: Mohan Vadlapatla

Story-Screenplay-Direction: Satish Kasetty

Released On: 17th July 2009

Colors Swathy has got good salable value after the film ‘Asta Chemma’ and that has carried expectations on the movie ‘Kalavaramaye Madilo’. And that is the only factor that hooked the audiences to look at this film. Let us see how far the expectations are reached.

Story:

Sreya (Swathy) lives with her mother (Delhi Rajeshwari) and works in an Audit Office. But she loves singing and hence gets into earning by joining as a stage singer in a Star Hotel. She also holds a dream of singing in the composition of AR Rehman.

Sastry (Tanikella Bharani) makes ways to find a concert for his friend who is a classical singer Rao (Vikram Gokhale). They happen to come to that Star Hotel in search of a chance at the same place and listen to Sreya’s performance. Rao shouts on her quoting the standards of music. Sreya takes that as a challenge and goes to the same Rao to learn music.

Srinu (Kamal Kamarj) a London returned guy happens to be the pair for Sreya.

What happens later and how Sreya fulfils her dreams form rest of the story.

Performances:

Colors Swathy:
She is the only pulling factor for this film. She did her best in justifying the role. Fun, humor and energy were given by her in first half. But the second half demanded pathos part in her and hence audiences get to see a new Swathy with tears.

Kamal Kamaraju:
It is good that he improved muscles and looking macho. At the same time he needs to improve a lot in the matters of action and dialogue delivery. His guitar scene is very eccentric and such hysterical scenes should be done only when they are necessary.

Vikram Gokhale:
He is very new to Telugu screen. Audiences can connect to him only when he can deliver all sorts of histrionics required for silver screen. But he didn’t. He underplayed a lot in that passive patient role leaving no sense for his presence in the movie. He is known as very good stage artiste in Maharashtra but he proved not the only choice for the role. And the dubbing voice of renowned SP Balasubrahmanyam given to him is another flaw.

Others:
Tanikella Bharani did his best. He recalls the role of Sarath Babu in Sagarasangamam for some time and that of Allu Ramalingiah in Sankarabharanam for other time.

Delhi Rajeshwari is ok in her role but appeared weaker than before.

Pragathi (hero’s mother) missed timing in delivering dialogues as well as expressions. This can be considered as one of her poor performances in recent time.

Technical Departments:

There is nothing great or less to mention about any technical department and everything went in run of the mill state. Dialogues are good and sensible to large extent but the problem arrived with screenplay. The wellness of dialogues got smoked by lengthy indoctrinating scenes where not required, especially in second half.

Music and Lyrics:

Sarath Vasudevan’s music is mediocre. He needs to improve in orchestration part. Vanamali’s lyrics are good especially in two numbers- ‘Tholi Asalenno’ and ‘Pallavinchina…’.

Highlights:

Colors Swathy

Disappointments:

Screenplay
No sufficient entertainment

Analysis:

The religion of the director who happens to be the story writer of the movie seems to be ‘Vishwanathism’ as far as this film is concerned. To elaborate, the elements in the films Sagarasangamam, Sankarabharanam, Sruthi Layalu and Swarna Kamalam would role on minds’ screen while watching this film. And there is nothing wrong and such attempt deserves praises. But it’s not just the story that becomes a movie. Proper screenplay, scene conviction and free flow are required to hook the audiences. And moreover, such films need a right proportion of humor to balance the equation.

The attempt of director to bring pathos in climax is laudable but the blend missed the goal. The choice of artistes is not so impressive. And the director didn’t do any attempt to balance the equation of emotions those are being delivered in the movie.

First half goes little better with the humor and trademark style of Colors Swathy. But the second half mars the enthusiasm levels of audiences with heaviness in scenes and narration. Lack of timing while delivering dialogues and giving expressions hindered the free flow in narration.

Apart from this, the directors should know that there is huge talent within known sources and need not run for artistes like Vikram Gokhale.

On a whole it’s an old concoction attempted to serve with newness but couldn’t reach the expectation.

Attempt of director can be appreciated but pity on would-be box office result.

Bottom-line: Should be watched with ‘big heart’ to say ‘it’s good’