Early Tollywood: KALIDASU

4.11.2008

KALIDASU 2008

Cast: Sushanth, Tamanna, Ajay, Suneel, Rajan P. Dev, Vinodkumar, Jayasudha, Nagababu and Others.
Action: Kanal Kannan.
Cinematography: Akhilan.
Editing: Goutham Raju.
Lyrics: Chandrabose.
Music: Chakri.
Story, Screenplay & Direction: G. Ravicharan Reddy.
Presenter: Annapurna Studios.
Producer(s): Chintalapudi Srinivasa Rao-A. Naga Susheela.
Banner: Sri Nag Corporation.
Release Date: 11th April, 2008.Kalidasu is what you'd call a formula flick. An orphan who is unofficially adopted by a poor mother-son family so he is ready to lay his life out for them. The movie marks the debut of another ANR grandkid, Sushanth. 'Happy Days' girl Tammana is cast opposite him. Chakri's music is mediocre. The movie itself has some loopholes and has nothing new to offer.
Story:
SushanthPlot Kalidasu is a car-thief in Guntur who looks after his adoptive mother Kanakadurga (Jayasudha) and sends her son Jaydev to college in Hyderabad. In a car they steal, a girl is hidden in the trunk, clearly escaping from something but pretending to be insane. A procession of SUVs come and take the girl from the colony, destructing everything in their way and murdering Kalidasu's friend. Her phone has the photograph of herself and Jaydev together and this takes Kalidasu to Hyderabad to a gamut of land mafia, politicos, student bodies, revenge and obsession.
Story, Screenplay and Direction
The storyline is bankable, but gets repetitive. All the safe mode plots, the rough car-stealing robinhood (he steals cars from the rich to sell it back to them and take care of everyone's needs) the whole colony looks up to, the damsel in distress, the 'punch' before the break-it's all in there. The main leads break into a song suddenly without rhyme or reason and the girl is the eternal damsel in distress.
Suneel is an asset to lift the first half up and the sentiment/revenge motive of the second half works well. The ferociousness of the home minister's cronies is convincing and the whole outsmarting the villain is played all over again. There are a couple of noticeable loopholes though. Archana gets drunk and asks Kalidasu whether she is right or Ajay-how can Ajay, a land-grabbing obsessive dope-head be right?
Lip sync is totally out in many of the scenes, and for the home minister, his whole dialogues have been improvised while dubbing. The music has nothing to offer.