Early Tollywood

4.18.2008

Banner: S Pictures

Cast:
Prakashraj
Santhanam
Kanja Karuppu
Madhumitha
Jyothirmayi
Rajesh
Ilavarasu
M S Bhaskar and others

Music: Vidyasagar

Cinematography: S Soundarajan

Producer : Shankar

Story & Director: Simbudevan

Release Date : April 18, 2008

Story:
A film with divine touch, the story is about two unemployed youth Raju (Santhanam) and Mani (Kanja Karuppu) who live in the most conjusted mansions of Chennai, Triplicane and lead a life among the thousands of youth who come in search of livelihood and making their dreams come true. However, they meet with failure at all junctions and are unable to find a job and meet their ends. They are on the verge of extreme poverty with loans even in the Tea stall. Added to this is the love angle where Raju wants to marry Mahi (Jyothirmayi) who does not acknowledge his feelings for a long time. Things get messy and unable to control their frustration, they lash out at god for bringing them to such a stage. Out of the blue, God (Prakashraj) appears and he agrees to get them out of their problems. In this process, he also reveals that the power to his godliness is the galaxy yantra which rules the universe. He spends few days and makes the two realize that it is actually their change of attitude and approach that will benefit them. Just before he is about to leave, both Raju and Mani flick the yantra from him and god becomes a normal human being while these two become gods. What happens after that forms the rest of the story.

The director who has made his debut seems to have made his mind to come up with a very clear social message and he focused so much on that aspect that he did not think about considering aspects like entertainment, mass appeal and other things. The plot was very interesting and the presentation was excellent but the narration was dull. Full credit goes to the camerawork for capturing the locales so realistically and the music is equally good though the songs are just about okay. Editing could have been more sharp and the screenplay was competent. Both Santhanam and Kanja Karuppu came out with good performances but Santhanam needs to work with more ease while expressing his emotions. Both Jyothirmayi and Madhumitha did not have much to offer as their role was limited to songs only. Prakash Raj was very calm and poised and though he missed the divinity aspect, he sure looked like one among those common people which is impressive. The supporting cast was experiences and came out with real good performance.

The movie has come across with a very intelligent and realistic way of looking at life and things get much better with the entrance of god in it. While the aim is to dispel conceptions about fate, faith and other things the focus has been so much on the conveying of messages and morals at every instant that the mass audience may find it least interesting. The movie is more of a film festival and award winning material and if the comedy and the pace of the story was worked on, it could have turned out to be a remarkable eye opener to many. There is a lot of Tamil flavour seen in it, hence the Telugu audience may find it hard to connect with the style of presentation though the story will appeal in many ways.

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MICHAEL MADANA KAMARAJU 2008

Banner: Silver Screen Movies

Cast:
Srikanth
Prabhudeva
Sunil
Charmi,
sha Saini
Naga Babu
KavithaVenu Madhav
Brahmanandam
Abhinayasri
Kota
Ali
Kondavalasa
Kovai Sarala and others
Cinematography: P Vasu

Music: Chakri

Director: Nidhi Prasad

Producers: M Venkataramana, Yogesh Patel, Raju, Praveen

Release date: April 18, 2008
Story:

A lengthy movie, the story begins with Madan (Srikanth) a successful fashion designer who hates love and does not believe in love marriages and Kamaraju (Sunil) is his cousin who is crazy about girls. Both of them go to Goa and that's where Madan meets Archana (Charmi), who is the daughter of a retired Army major (Nagababu) and Kamaraju meets Mandira (Asha Saini). While Kamu and Mandira get along very well and fall in love with each other, Archana also is an aspiring fashion designer and through stroke of events she ends up in the office of Madan. Madan is impressed with Archana and slowly develops his feelings for her strongly. But then his ego does not allow him to express his love. Meanwhile, Kamaraju is busy trying to convince Madan about his marriage to Mandira and in this process he cooks up a story that Archana's wedding is fixed with Ravindra (Prabhu Deva) and fabricates a wedding card also. As fate would have it, Madan bumps into Ravindra who is actually Michael and gets to know Madan's feelings. He is a trained conman and listening to the story, he hatches a plan to marry Archana and become the rich owner of all her properties. So he ropes in few professional artists like Kota (Kota), Valli (Mallikarjun Rao), Kovai Sarala to act as his family. Does he get successful in his plan? What happens to Madan's love? all this forms the rest of the story.
The director who has already come up with some comedy flicks before tried to cook up a good comedy but then he lost out severely on its presentation and narration. The script was lengthy and the screenplay was not upto mark. The editing department was asleep and the camera did not have much to do in the film. the music was not that great except for the dance number of Prabhudeva. Srikanth was regular with his performance and he needs to do something about his hair, also he needs to work on his English as there was a heavy Telugu accent in his dialogues which were many in this movie. Sunil was exceptional with his comedy and witty dialogues which managed to get quite a few laughs. Prabhudeva showed lot of energy and has proved that he can be a good actor too. Charmi looks glamorous and has done her role very effectively. Asha Saini was truly a revelation as she was sizzling hot and one really wonders why she was not discovered with such beauty a long time ago. The fleet of comedians like Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Ali, Kota, Kovai Sarala were good at few scenes but appeared histrionic at few instants. Naga Babu was refined.
Though the attempt to provide comedy in all aspects was the objective, the film maker spent a lot of time trying to make justice to every character which dragged the film unnecessarily. The inclusion of so many characters may have added a lot of glamour appeal but then the plot got diluted with it. There are many unwanted songs and the audience was busy scratching heads with impatience as the second half was going eternally. The movie might sustain for about a week to fortnight but after that it is only a twist of fate that can carry the film along.