"Memu" (Telugu Film Review)

My review:

https://www.telugu360.com/suriya-memu-film-defines-new-age-parenting/

"Iddarammayalatho" Movie Review (Telugu)

Puri Jagannadh is one of the cleverest directors in Tollywood who churns out more than three films per year, sometimes four by preparing scripts that encash the flavor-of-the-month phenomenon. Between last year's Sankranti and now, he directed four films including the current offering with Style Diva Allu Arjun. But I am afraid, his decline has started with the film "Businessman", reached a nadir with "Devudu Chesina Manushulu", and later on, became known as a director who creates controversy for promoting the film. As an audience, I feel betrayed whenever I see a Puri film because he has scant respect for social responsibility and is least sensitive to sentiments of women audience (even if many of them perversely watch his films). In "Iddarammayalatho", he tries to camouflage his obsession with making films for the galleries with a little more maturity but the basic plot and lacklustre screenplay gives away in this 137 minute action thriller.

Despite the hype, and despite a sterling performance by Allu Arjun  - in dances, action stunts, and romantic scenes, the film doesn't deliver on many counts - and the reason could be the fatigue setting in for Puri's stereotypes - of machismo heroes, over-glamorised heroines and sadistic villains. I feel he is misguided in all his approach to film-making which makes even icons like Mahesh and Pawan Kalyan and Allu Arjun flock to him for direction in the hope of adding  a hit to their credit. Every frame in the film is fraught with dishonesty and deceipt - to manipulate emotions of the audience. And all this he takes liberties with the storyline frothed up from a basic one-line. The story goes like this here. Sanju Reddy (Allu Arjun) is a guitarist who falls in love with Komali (Amala Paul) who is learning violin under Brahmanandam - in Barcelona, Spain (Thank God, it's not Bangkok again!). One day, she shoots, by mistake, a murder being committed by a Gangster villain on the beach. The villains chase her down, kidnap her and make many attempts to eliminate her. Meanwhile, as the parents of both agree to come down to bless them as married, the villains kill the parents of both even as Komali and Sanju escape. This is the flashback portion, the narration actually moves in the voice of  another girl Akanksha (Catherine Theresa) who is reading a diary of Amala Paul (which itself turns out to be another twist). In learning about the diary, Akanksha falls in love with Sanju and then it takes a routine turn except that the diary itself is "planted" by Sanju so that Akanksha reads it and falls in love with him because her father, a minister (Rao Ramesh) and the gangster are partners-in-crime for a Rs. One lakh crore scam. Sanju takes revenge and settles down, we are to believe, with the two glam dolls. The storyline appears long but the screenplay is better. 

Even if the first half is more entertaining than the second half, the film's watchability is because of Allu Arjun. His uber cool dresses, stylish body language and his repertoire of dancing skills and acrobatic stunts makes him a good draw despite the presence of two glamorous faces. The best paisa-vasool moment of the film is the action sequence before the interval. Anyone wanting to make a transition from ugly looks to handsome looks should study the career graph of Allu Arjun - it is quite unparalleled. Amala Paul's performance is below-par and it appears this Kerala lass is incapable of outgrowing her shy looks and demure body language. Catherine Theresa has carried herself far better - she seems effortless in Indian dresses, has better scenes than Amala and has a screen presence. Comedy track is a big let-down for the film. Puri's obsession with Ali is not yielding success and the scenes between Brahmanandam and Ali are pure disaster. Puri is losing touch with what can fire up comedy. He also has to treat the audience with more respect, intelligence and sensibilities. In a scene where Catherine is packing off to Spain, she wears scantiest dress which you don't wear in front of your mother. And it is the father in whose presence, she is packing the clothes. In most other scenes, when the narration is pathos, he shows Catherine in min shorts baring her thighs and cleavage, that is absurd sensibility. Puri's respect for intelligence is also well-known; there are references to mining scams and CBI without reason or rationale, the second heroine Catherine who comes to Spain for studies doesn't go to college even once, all she does is to read Amala's diary and date Allu Arjun. And most of the dialogues are sexist - there are atleast four dialogues on why boys are taken for a ride by girls in the name of love, why boys losing virginity is never an issue, why girls are insensitive to boys' advances...it is these kind of dialogues that are corrupting the society and increasing crimes against women. Puri's count of felonies doesn't end with these manipulative dialogues - he talks casteism through characters which was unwarranted. He coins a word "Bapinese" to connotate converted Brahmins and also makes mockery of "Reddys" while insinuating grandeur. All this is not serious stuff, but Puri's style of directing, characterisation and story-telling smacks of a certain irresponsibility which will appeal to basic instincts of men not elevate them. According to me, his films will one day be housed in the "Hall of Shame". 2 out of 5 is my rating.

"Naayak" Telugu Movie Review

“Nayak” starring RamCharan is a sensational winner and a film worthy of duel under the “Sun”kranti. Sankranti is the grand-mother of Tollywood movies and is not for the faint-hearted. Even the best of stars don’t take a shy at the stumps for Sankranti because of the weight of expectations and the stakes riding on the season. It is the equivalent of Diwali for Kollywood and Bollywood, but unlike Bollywood, Tollywood Sankranti separates men from the boys because there will be a clash of atleast two, if not three or four star-studded films. This little intro is for setting the tone for the year and “Nayak” proves to be an auspicious start for Tollywood. It has all the elements of entertainment – a rising star of a Megastar, romance, drama sans melodrama, villainy that justifies heroism, twists in the interval that shakes you up and comedy that is of an unprecedented scale, plenty of action and glamor of two cute heroines – Kajol and Amala Paul. Well-directed by veteran VV Vinayak.

The story is not dramatically different from dual-role stories in which Tollywood has taken a world patent. Set in Kolkata, Cherry is a happy-go lucky software engineer who falls in love  with Kajol. His side-kick is Brahmanandam playing the role of “Jilebi” who bumps into the gang of Rahul Dev and Jayaprakash. In the many romantic twists of the romance between Cherry and Kajol there is another character of Aashish Vidyarthi who is a CBI officer investigating gruesome murders of a goon, a police DIG (think of it!). He thinks it is all the work of Cherry and prepares to nab him next at a pre-announced Kumbh Mela where Pradeep Rawal gets a threat to get killed. At the Kumbh Mela where generally two doubles get lost from each other in olden movies, the bizarre twist that the one who is killing off all the villains is not Cherry, but Naayak, his look-alike. Then a lengthy interval which justifies the violent spree of killing by Naayak of all the guys who wronged him and his brother-in-law’s family. And then the proverbial climax after 160 minutes spaced with six spicy songs, about six to seven slick but needless fights and plenty of comedy from Jayaprakash  Reddy, Posani Krishna Murali, Brahmanandam and MS Narayana.

VV Vinayak is a director who excels in screenplay and story-telling and this is going to be a well-worked out example of his capabilities especially after the debacle of “Badrinath” but what can make his movies a family-draw is an abject reduction of grating violence with sumos, sickles and gunshots. While he has got great narrative grip in giving a story full of twists and flashbacks, he needs to be  a responsible film-maker of family sensitivities and tone down violence. In this film, he inter-mixes a lot of themes from movies like “Tagore”, “Aadi”, “Bunny”(all his films) as well as films like “Sivaji”, “Stalin” and “Businessman”. There are social themes touched upon like child prostitution and child beggary after maiming the children (as shown in “Slumdog Millionaire”). Couple this with violence, and you have a full-blooded “A” certificate. Personally, I feel “A” certificate films mar the fesivity of Sankranti season and should be avoided. But unlike  a movie like “Businessman” released last Sankranti, this film doesn’t have adult-level profanities. What redeems the film from its mediocrities of double-role tamashas seen from the times of “Ramudu-Bheemudu” is the fantastic comedy and entertainment right from the first few minutes. The first fight in a series of never-ending stunts comes only at the fortieth minute so it sets the characters well with the show-stealers being Jayaprakash (this must be his career-best), Posani Krishna Murali (he steals the show in second-half). Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav and MS Narayana have not get the better deal in this film and atleast their characters are not etched out to milk their potential. Ramcharan looks very stylish and “Orange”cool throughout the film and even the mass role of “Naayak” looks classy for him, he probably had the least dialogues in the film as a hero compared to all his previous films. But he proves a point again, that he can dance as well as his dad and his cousin Allu Arjun. All the songs carry  a signature step and a classy twist of a leg. There are so many others dominating in this film that Charan’s space comes only in the songs and fights a few one-liners with  the villains and Kajol. Both Kajol and Amala Paul look passable despite their skimpy clothes and sizzle in the navel. Kajol looks jaded and Amala Paul is guilty of horrible makeup; her lipstick and dressing sense has gone haywire. Aashish Vidyarthi, Kota Srinivasa Rao make their mark in their respective roles. Music by Thaman gives the classy feel to the mass numbers in the album with one song starring item girl Charmmee quite a foot-tapping number. The song remixing “Shubhalekha Raasa” (“Kondaveeti Donga”) is well-shot in Iceland but the song’s interludes are outright copied from the original song by IlayaRaja. I thought the interludes by IlayaRaja have given an iconic status to the song but by copying it fully right through the notes, Thaman  disappointed us. What is the meaning of a remix then?

On the whole, the film is marred  only by excessive violence but carries the day for some extraordinary entertainment and good songs and convincing performances by the entire starcast. Tollywood has patented few themes for eternity and ATM-cash-withdrawal from the box office. Examples, “Yamudu” theme, “Dual Role and sometimes triple role” themes – lost and found kind, “Shakespearan themes” of Taming the shrew/Comedy of errors/King Lear/Macbeth/All’s Well that ends well kind. The dual role concept is given an exhilarating treatment by VV Vinayak who should take a bow with this film. But for the violence in the film which extends the film by atleast 20 minutes, I subtract 0.5 and give the film an above-average 3 out of 5.