Prasthanam (2010) Review by Early Tollywood

After Leader I did not write any review, because I should be wasting my time commenting on such movies which dont even deserve it, thats why I post such reviews by copy pasting the reviews by other sites. The movie which moved me to write the review now is Prasthanam.


Prasthanam!! wow good name !!

Who is the director dude? Deva Katta (The guy who directed Vennela) Oh...!! (not so satisfied)

Casting.. Sarwanand and Sai Kumar (Good selection dude... after Samanyudu I was very confident with Sai Kumar's performance ..he just steals the screen from other actors and Sarwanand he has some good sense of selection of movies it seems...)

Human emotions as main thing with Vijayawada Politics as backdrop. Nice!! seems interesting... Lets see how is it gonna be.

One of the finest movies made in Telugu in recent times. It can be one among the good movies in this decade. What a performance by Sai Kumar. The movie is based on the fact that human journey is a mix of good and bad deeds. And in the movie you can see the journeys of different people due to the situations they face.

Firstly director should be given the whole credit for writing such a complex story. No doubt this movie is a good one. So I dont want to write all crap for which other sites are there. I would like to mention about the characters and their treatment by the director.

Loki by Sai Kumar is the most complex character in the movie. It travels so much distance that either you may be in a situation where you feel great about the character or feel disgusted. The slight confusion in his mind and his transformation from a good politician to a bad one due to the situations is absolutely fine.

Mitra by Sarwanand is a character who resembles a child who believes his father blindly. When he knows the truth he cannot digest the fact and the way he expresses that he lives in an illusion is awesome.

Chinna's character is also a very good character which is full of jealousy and betrayal.

The journey is mainly based on these three characters and what are the situations created between Mitra and Chinna. Chinna feels jealous of Mitra and his character's Prasthanam starts with a bad deed of killing Basha's (Loki's right hand) daughter and continues to do the same bad deeds to cover up the old ones. So his character mainly travels with a negative shade and ends without a regret.

The climax of the movie can be the heart for the movie which clearly depicts that Mitra is like Light and Loki is like Darkness. When there is light , darkness cannot prevail. And the might of darkness should be appreciated. Darkness cannot be caused on its own , its only due to the situations. And the way Loki's character ends is the best solution to mitra's question to him (nee patra cheragakunda ee natakanni nuvve muginchu nanna...). The war between the light and darkness is PRASTHANAM.

And regarding technical things, camera work plays a major role and Shyam Dutt garu elevated the movie to another level. And Deva Katta should not be hesitated in the future to remove the useless scenes in the movie (mainly the heroine part and some songs in the movie really decreases the tempo of the movie). Since camera work elevates the movie to a different level , eventhough music is little inferior you wont be noticing it. And as a viewer I can comment on only these things and I think every technician should have played a great role in shaping up the movie.

Finally I would like to thank Deva Katta for such a great movie. And I hope he does not get struck and I hope he will try some new genre of films.

Mohan Babu's RAJU-MAHARAJU Review By Greatandhra

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.

GAMYAM 2008

Banner: First Frame Entertainment

Cast:

Allari Naresh

Sharwanand

Kamalinee Mukherjee

Rao Ramesh Rao

Brahmanandam

MS Narayana

LB Sriram

Vidyasagar

Abhishek

Giribabu

Vijaya Chander

Hema

Sweta Agarwal and others
Credits:

Dialogues – Nagaraju Gandham

Lyrics – Sirivennela Sitaramasastry, ES Murthy

Music – ES Murthy, Anil R,

Background Score – ES Murthy,

Camera – Hari Anumolu,

Editing – Shravan Ketikani,

Choreography – Suchitra Chandrabose, Swarna, Prasanna,

Action – Ram-Laxman

Art – Rajiv Nair

Co-producers – Tammudu Satyam,Y Rajeev Reddy

Presents – Bibo Srinivas

Producer – Saibabu Jagarlamudi

Story, screenplay and direction – Radha Krishna (Krish)

Tag Line:A journey in search of love and life
Director Radha Krishna has made a nice experiment on the screen to explain the value of life, the depth of love, the difference between attraction and real love. He chose love as the backdrop of the story. The film is almost similar to Mee Sreyobhilashi but in a different way. In that film, the hero takes some people, who want to die and make them learn the value of life. However, in this film, the hero goes in search of his lover and in the process learns the value of life and love, besides learning the lifestyle of common people. Krish, who made his debut as director, did a commendable job, by scripting excellent screenplay as the entire movement of the film is based on it. In a nutshell, the film is based on a theme – Premanu Preminche Prema, Premakai Preminchina Premanu Premistundi. (A love which loves the love of others, really loves the one who really loves all others than the one single individual).
Story:

Abhiram @ Abhi (Sharwanand) is the son of a multi-millionaire called GK (Vidyasagar). He is born and brought up among currency and for him life is just a game and he has been accustomed to lavish lifestyle. He dates with several girls and once he comes across Janaki (Kamalini), who has just completed her medicine course. Abhi challenges his friends that he would make her fall in love within few days. Abhi invites Janaki for coffee after a dance programme and proposes her. Janaki, being an orphan, is very kind towards the poor people and is service-minded. She mingles with poor people and provides succour to them. But, being a rich boy, Abhi hates those people. However, Janaki's free-spirited nature takes him very near to her and he develops an intimate friendship. At the same time, Janaki keeps maintaining some distance and does not express her love. By the time, she wants to express her love, she learns that Abhi has challenged his friends about his love and decides to keep herself off. While dropping her at her hostel, Abhi tries to convince her that he is really in love with her but she does not listen to him. In the process, Abhi makes an accident, where a woman dies and two of her children become orphans. Janaki survives the accident, while Abhi wakes up from injuries in hospital. After gaining conscious, Abhi could not find Janaki and he decides to go in search of her. In the process, he happens to meet a motorbike lifter called Gaali Seenu (Allari Naresh). Though Seenu is a vehicle-lifter, he is good at heart. The journey he takes, changes his life drastically as he is exposed to the hard realities of rural life and yet it's simple joys. The landscapes and the people he meets takes him through an emotional journey that alters his perceptions forever. Be it is a teacher, who supports orphan kids, a disillusioned ex-militant, a prostitute who craves for love, or his own companion Gali Sreenu, they all aid in his journey of self-discovery. During their journey, Abhi meets several people from different walks of life, including Naxalites and unfortunately Seenu dies of bullet injuries when an encounter takes place between the Naxals and police. He dies in the hands of Abhi. This really hurts Abhi, though he is no way related to him but has a few days of friendship. Finally, when Abhi meets Janaki, he admits that he was able to learn what life is. The film ends with the union of Abhi and Janaki.

It is Allari Naresh, who walked away with honours. Allari Naresh, as a solo hero, used to excel in comedy roles. However, in a bid to escape from the comedy hero image, started co-starring with other heroes like Rajiv Kanakala, Sivaji, Sharwanand and others. Though the films appear to be a multi-starrers (more than one hero), Naresh's role in all those films are distinct and he earned an image of his own in those films. Naresh's comedy gave very good relief to the audiences. Otherwise, the audiences might have felt bored watching a long journey of the hero on a mobike. Sharwanand improved a lot in performance. However, he still needs to learn more about his body language. Though Kamalini is the heroine, her role is very limited and she appears in few scenes. But she too did a wonderful job in those few scenes. She is very traditional in looks and her smile is distinct and she is a perfect fit to the role.

The one-liners scripted for Seenu's character, the camera work by Hari Anumolu, the editing by Shravan are okay. The first song choreographed on Kamalini Mukherjee, with an inspiration from a Chinese dance form is worth watching. Music by ES Murthy and Anil are just average. The director has also followed the pattern of showing the flashback episodes in pieces and this time, that has worked well unlike many others.