Early Tollywood

6.01.2009

Film: Dairy

Direction: Machakanti Ramakrishna

Cast: Sivaji, Shraddha Das, Sridhar Rao, Mousami Udeshi, Dr Sivaprasad, Jeeva, Srinivas, Harshavardhan, Kamal, Chinnikrishna and others

Producer: Chukka Kalyanram

Story: Yandamuri Virendranath

Presents: Meghashyam Bokam

Dialogues: Arun

Cinematography: V. Srinivasa Reddy

Editing: Gauthamraju

Music: Mantra Anand

Art: Vishaal

Action: Nandu

Banner: Gen Next Movies and Great Ocean Entertainments

Release Date: May 29 2009

Bollywood is known for bringing out good suspense, thriller and horror stories. However, the Tollywood too made inroads into it, and films like ‘Mantra’, ‘Anasuya’ which are basically suspense thriller subjects were proved big hits in recent times. With the success of ‘Mantra’, its producer Chukka Kalyanram, looked for yet another suspense thriller subject and okayed Yandamuri Virendranath’s story. The film made with a relatively low budget and hence, he chose Sivaji as hero again, as he is affordable and adequate to the story. At the same time, the megaphone was handed over to a debutant Machakanti Ramakrishna, a novice. However, he handled the story by penning screenplay for himself.

Story:

Vamsi (Sivaji) buys a used and fully-furnished beach house in Vizag from a real estate dealer. He saves a dancing girl Maya (Shraddha Das) from a goon in a local gathering. She stays along with Vamsi in his house during that night because it was raining heavily. As they explore the house in the night, they find a diary written in 2002. They find out that it was written by the man who owned that house in the past. His wife gets killed and she is rumored to be staying there as a ghost. And the events mentioned in the diary start happened to this pair. The rest of the story is about unlocking the mystery behind the house.

Performance:

The film basically has two pairs of hero and heroines. While Sivaji and Shraddha Das paired up as one couple, another pair is Sridhara Rao and Mousami Udeshi. Sivaji, the main hero is adequate and such roles is very common for him. Earlier too, Sivaji played such roles in a couple of films. Sivaji maintained good body language and his attire, with a very casual look, gives the impression that it was Sivaji who could do justice to such roles. Shraddha Das, who has the male looks in some angles is okay. Especially, the scenes where she portrays the horror looks were perfectly caught by the camera. Siradhara Rao and Mousami Udeshi are adequate in their roles. Harshavardhan, Dr Siva Prasad did justice to their respective roles.

Technical:

Though a debutant, Radhakrishna explained all the thoughts exactly what was in his mind on the celluloid. Mantra Anand’s background score is another highlight of the film. There are very few dialogues in the film as the entire film is nothing but a narration from a book. Cinematography by Srinivasa Reddy is adequate and art by Vishaal is impressive. Gauthamraju once again proved his seniority and made the film crisp.

Analysis:

Though the script, screenplay and direction by Ramakrishna are okay, there are few lapses which should have been avoided had he concentrated more on the film. The subject ‘hallucinations’ is not new to the Telugu audiences. Director Ramakrishna narrated the entire story by visualisation. The only drawback of the film is that it has no mass elements, but the film would definitely attract the youth and class audiences. The film may run with above average rating because of the nice movement of subject and in maintaining the suspense thriller element with perfect and gripping screenplay.

Sourcce: whatslatest

5.29.2009

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Vishal's PISTA (2009) Movie Review by Greatandhra

Film: Pista

Banner: GK Film Corporation

Rating: 2/5

Cast: Vishal, Shriya, Kishore, Prakash Raj, Geetha, Tanikella Bharani, Shayaji Shinde, Ali, Krishna Bhagawan, Srinivas Reddy etc

Lyrics: Ananth Sriram

Dialogues: Shashank Vennelakanti

Action: Rocky Rajesh

Art: Velu-Prakash

Editing: VT Vijayan

Camera: Priyan

Producer: Vikram Krishna

Music: Mani Sharma

Story, Screenplay, Direction: Sabha Ayyappan

Released On: 29th May 2009

The much hyped ‘Pista’ that has been making rounds in big way in media circles has finally released today. Let us see how far the film stood up to expectations

Story:

Murali Krishna (Vishal), rough and tough young man from the village Ramachandrapuram comes to Vizag in search of his elder brother who runs away from home in childhood.

His wish is to make his mother happy by bringing back her elder son. In the process, he happens to develop a tug with two gangsters Guru (Kishore) and Surya Prakash (Prakash Raj).

The typical action drama continues till the last and if Murali Krishna found his brother has to be watched on screen. It is not something special to say that Indu (Shriya) is the lady love for Murali Krishna and there is nothing big to portray for her other than this.

Performances:

Vishal with his rugged look once again portrayed in mass action flick. All his histrionics, the choice of subject, the way he presented himself looked obsolete. His voice base and punch while delivering heavy dialogues are to be improved. Vishal needs to try something new to make a stride. For him the action film/mass flick happens to be just a few fights, songs and heavy packed climax. He has to come out from that shell and try for newness.

Shriya has shown enough of oomph and that worked well on screen.

Prakash Raj is at his best as a gangster. He justified his role. Kishore as another gangster is also ok. Ali’s comedy is good but Krishna Bhagawan failed to spill laughs with his weak track. Tanikella Bharani, the senior artiste with good élan, has diminished himself as a side kick for villain. He wouldn’t have zeroed in on that not-so-prominent role.

Action episodes are also outdated. Music is just average. The film is lacking freshness and the director is solely responsible for that. The production values are good but the subject matter is weak.

Analysis:

It appears to be a dubbed version with first look, watching Vishal on screen, but since it’s bilingual, the nativity is not missed in many frames. All the songs except ‘Pattuko Pattuko…’ were shot with Telugu lyrics and majority of scenes were also canned in Telugu that brought a perfect lip sync of artistes. The padding artistes also brought nativity feel for audiences.

First half of the film runs with time pass scenes and there will be no big movement in story line. The real story begins only with interval twist and second half. The conclusion is as expected and hence the last 15 minutes will not be that exciting for audiences.

The plight of this film depends on the patronage of mass audiences and the posters with glamorous Shriya may help to some extent. The film may run only with artificial boost up and heavy publicity but not with material in it.