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Srimanthudu (2015)
Content meets Commerce
Harsha Vardhan (Mahesh Babu) is the son of a billionaire Ravi (Jagapathi Babu). Harsha Vardhan values people and relationships. He doesn't care about his rich status and the business of his father. He comes to know about a village called Devarakota where people suffer due to atrocities committed by Seshu (Sampath Raj). Rest of the story is all about what he does after adopting village and about his personal connection to it!
Koratala Siva has studied the personality and body language of Mahesh Babu well and presented him extremely well. Mahesh has given an outstanding performance in pr-climax emotional episode. It's not just his acting and expressions, his trembling dialogue delivery adds up to the emotion in that scene. He shows his class in marriage fight scene and is extremely young in romantic episodes.
Story of the film is about knowing your roots and giving back to the society. It's a daring attempt to make a film with this kind of righteous and noble story line. Director Koratala Siva has carefully balanced the noble storyline and commercial image of Mahesh Babu give a rightly blended and engaging movie. Mahesh Babu has certain class associated with him and the director has used Mahesh Babu's class to write a beautiful character. I had a basic doubt about how a guy who doesn't earn anything on his own gives it back to the society. But, the director has given nice justification to it in the movie. The way Siva established Mahesh as a simple guy with simple thinking amidst the rich family is excellent. He has made sure that the nobility of the character is intact throughout the movie. The screenplay of the film is well written and interest in the film is sustained throughout. The way hero meets three baddies (related to each other) at different points of time shows how cleverly screenplay is written. Though the film has class orientation, director has made sure that there are exciting fights (especially marriage class flight, interval fight and mango farm fight). With Srimanthudu, Siva Koratala squashes the second film jinx and proves that he is here to stay with a bright future ahead.
1 - Nenokkadine (2014)
A nice attempt
Hearsay had it that the movie was a rehashed adaptation of the Bourne series. We can assure you it isn't. That said, that said the film seems like an earnest attempt to fashion a spy thriller (in which the protagonist is in search of his true identity) to the dictates of the mainstream Tollywood potboiler template. We'll try to take you through the process of how a filmmaker looking to adapt a Hollywood thriller in Telugu would have to do.
Firstly, clichés of the Hollywood spy thriller genre would need to be tinkered with suitably, starting from the protagonist. Since the intelligence wing of India, RAW, doesn't quite have the same ring as the MI6 or FBI, having the hero play a spy could prove detrimental. Playing an undercover cop or investigative journalist is considered too passé these days. A rock star is considered to be the epitome of user cool these days (in Telugu cinema parlance at least), and needless to say offers numerous song possibilities and the excuse to dress up the hero in a multitude of looks. So rocker it is.
Now adapting to the central conflict of the plot - stolen identity - would be a real challenge. It would be too old fashioned to have his loose his memory due to a head injury sustained in an accident. Having his memory erased by the villains would get too implausibly hi-tech for the plot. We also need something that can bring in some melodrama... like the loss of a loved one.
Voila, Gautham is introduced awakening from a nightmare from his childhood where he's on the run, dodging bullets from goons. It is followed by a prophetic rock number that goes Who are you?...giving you a hint of the central theme of the film. The song ends in a spectacular chase sequence after which Gautam surrenders to the police, confessing to killing three people who murdered his parents. It is revealed, our man is suffering from a brain disorder resulting from a 25% shortfall in Grey matter in his brain! As a result he can't tell reality from hallucination, the doctor explains after proving that Gautam doesn't remember how his parents looked.
Did he really have parents? Did the get killed? Is it all a creation of his bleeped up brain? The rest of the film is designed to answer these questions in a rather complicated way. There is a touch of sophistication in the way the screenplay plays out. The cinematography is very slick and creates an intense mood with dull color pallets.
The acting by Mahesh Babu is pretty intense right though despite going overboard with the brooding act a few places. He wears a permanent frown right through the movie without as much as half a grin even when he proposes love. He seems to have worked on his dancing which should cheer his fans big time. Kriti Sanon looks pretty and well enough to justify her role. The rest of the cast is just filling the numbers and do what they are told.
The writing is sharp right through albeit being not so whistle worthy. It packs quite a few smart one liners delving into the nature of truth, identity, pain etc. The music though comes as a dampener, as does the background score which seems too pretentious. The action sequences are very Hollywood inspired but fall well short of being breathtaking and end up looking cheesy.
So the bottom line is simple. The Tollywood format of six songs, five fights and loads of entertainment and melodrama makes it impossible to respectably adapt racy Hollywood styled suspense thrillers.
Athadu (2005)
Killer and a Gentleman
Nandu (Mahesh Babu), an orphan, is a top-notch professional killer in town. He maneuvers his operations with the help of his buddy (Sonu Sood). In one such operation, he falls into the eyes of the cops. While fleeing from the crime scene, he unintentionally becomes the cause for the death of a stranger called Pardhoo (Rajiv Kanakala), a run-away youngster who wants to return home after 12 years. Nandu assumes the identity of Pardhoo and enters his household in a remote village to escape from the cops. The rest of the story is all about how Nandu solves all the problems.
Mahesh Babu is stylish and brilliant as professional killer. He suited the profile of Nandu to the tee. He lives up to his image of Prince Charming with his mesmerizing looks. He transformed smoothly from the character of Nandu to Pardhoo, yet shown the variation in histrionics that come out due to Nandu's guiltiness to impersonate Pardhoo.
Trisha is in her elements in this film with traditional attire and cute mannerisms. The only difference between her characters in Varsham & NVNV and this film is that the voice dubbed by Savitha Reddy is mellowed down a bit, which is good. However, her role in this film is less compared to her past films.
Sonu Sood is perfect. Prakash Raj is adequate as the investigating officer. Tanikella Bharani's get-up and dialogue delivery is different when compared to the roles he is offered these days. Brahmaji is effectively used for a comedy fight in this film. Nassar donned the role of an old man. Frail voice dubbing by SP Balu suited him. Brahmanandam and Dharmavarapu Subramanyam succeeded in creating good humor. Sunil is good as loyal friend. Kota and Sayaji Shinde are adequate. K Viswanath did guest appearance as CBI's local chief.
Trivikram is known for his class entertainers that are loaded with sensible humor and nice emotional quotient. He tried something different for this film. The way he opened the film with a tree shot is terrific. You feel like you are watching Ram Gopal Varma's film in the first half an hour. His taking is trendy and stylish. When the scene shifts to village, Trivikram tries to lace in his typical humor. The screenplay of the film is not binding enough to blend these two stories (contract killer story and masquerader story). Nevertheless, he could not hold the similar tempo in the second half. The continuity and logic behind certain scenes is missing.
Photography of the film is terrific. The camera angles, shot framing, lighting effects and camera movements are appropriate to the respective scenes. A tint is used for the first half an hour of the film which made this film appear like the Hollywood films made with Mexican backdrop. Cinematographer KV Guhan deserves a pat on his back for his fine work.
Dookudu (2011)
A Complete entertainer
Shankar Narayan (Prakash Raj) is a political leader and a man of masses. He wants his son Ajay (Mahesh Babu) to become a political leader. Shankar Narayan is hurt in an accident and goes into coma. Meanwhile Ajay grows up and goes onto become an aggressive cop. And suddenly Shankar Narayan comes out of coma. The rest of the story is all about how Ajay manages to keep the changes under wrap for his father, and takes revenge on the villains at the same time with some unconventional ploys.
Mahesh Babu proved himself again that he is a director's actor. He has a big heart to allow Brahmanandam to take center stage for a few minutes, though it is Mahesh who creates such situations. One should have a flair to time the comedy of Seenu Vytla and Mahesh does it effortlessly. Mahesh is one of the comedians when he is with Brahmanandam and MS Narayana. Mahesh Babu has also excelled in dialogue delivery by mixing Telangana accent in villain confrontation scenes. Mahesh Babu's trade mark teasing romance works big time in Turkey episodes. You see Mahesh being cheerful and smiling in most of the parts of the film.
Samantha has a limited role in this movie and she does justice. Brahmanandam has a dialogue in the film Seenu Vytla is one of very few directors who utilizes the talent of Brahmanandam to the maximum extent. All those Brahmanandam lovers will have another feast in this movie in which he acts an actor of a fictitious reality show. The way Brahmanandam keeps expressions for 'bheebhatsamaina humanity' dialogue and the scene in which he appeals to Nagarjuna Akkineni using his camera pen is priceless. MS Narayana who has excelled as fire star in Dubai Seenu does another similar role in which he wants to make his debut as hero opposite Genelia. Prakash Raj is seen in a positive role (inspired by PJR) and he is excellent. Vennela Kishore does the role of Sastry whose grandmother is a fortuneteller. Nassar has done a comic role for a difference..
The basic concept of a person going into coma and that person's son creating artificial atmosphere around is inspired by a German film titled 'Goodbye Lenin! (2003) '. That German film is a serious film and somewhat boring (for me). The story writer Gopi Mohan used that plot and molded it to make an entertaining script. Seenu Vytla's main strength has always been entertainment and he made sure that there are ample characters to create humor. He used Brahmanandam and MS Narayanara effectively to create ample humor. Characterization of Mahesh Babu is done well and the director has also shown Mahesh Babu in new light with better comedy timing. Though the entertainment and action orientation is good, there are ups and downs in the narrative graph due to runtime and number of characters. Screenplay of the film is good. The screenplay techniques used on Prakash Raj taking revenge without knowing about it and Brahmanandam's crazy realty show will surely generate more commercial appreciation. Among all the characters, I feel that the character of Suman is not properly etched. It would have been more powerful if hero is introduced through the words of some other character, not through Suman's. And the death of Suman is also not justifiable. The following aspects of Seenu Vytla's trademark.