"Bruce Lee" Movie Review (Telugu)

My review:

https://www.telugu360.com/bruce-lee-nothing-striking/

"BruceLee" (Audio Review)

My take on "BruceLee" audio and on music of SS Thaman and on Ramcharan's choice of music in films:

http://www.telugu360.com/brucelee-audio-trendy-and-technobeat/

"Yevadu" (Telugu) Film Review

RamCharan strikes back. And he strikes gold with a sure-shot winner in "Yevadu" - a high octane commercial potboiler from Dil Raju. "Yevadu" has been the most-postponed film in recent times and with the release syncronising wih Sankranti today - his film might fare better with the festive audience longing for family drama and simple entertaining fare. Is the film different? Not different from the commercial fare - same old stunts and bone-smashing violence, item girls and cussed duets with cute girls. Infact, the film is longer too with 166 minutes of typical masala fare with a surfeit of villains  - Saikumar, Kota Srinivasa Rao, etc. Then what makes this watchable. Its the plot with a unique cinematic twist that comes in the first half hour and then again at interval block. I do not want to spoil the fun for your viewing experience by telling you the story. But suffice it that, Ramcharan takes off after half hour with a trail of sequences left by the other cameo star Allu Arjun in combating regular villains until a routine revenge drama takes over. 

Director Vamshi Paidipally weaves a simple story with a Shakespearan twist which gives an excitement in watching. Intermixed with loads of comedy from Brahmanandam on lines you have seen him before, the film takes off with good narration, characterisation and screenplay leaving the hero without any romance in the first half. Infact, much of the romance is on the side of villains with a new girl before Shruti Hasan takes over in second half. It is quite a typical commercial fare but novelty in treatment makes it eminently watchable. I believe the storyline with a twist is invested into by Vakkalanka Vamshi (the effervescent ETV newsreader of an era) and director Vamshi. Music by DSP has been the most hummable in this season and atleast two songs are chart-busters already. BGM score amplifies the emotions and the peformances well. 

Allu Arjun and Kajol Agarwal create a looming presence for themselves by selecting a role that gives them their own space in a film dominated by Ramcharan and Shruti Hasan. Dialogues are quite classy even if they occasionally hark back to vainglorious family fame. It is the violence that makes you squirm which doesn't usually have Dil Raju's sanction as he prefers everything toned down to family melodrama. First half is better than the second half because of tighter grip on narration and screenplay. Since everything adds up to the climax in the second half, director had brought in lot of elements and formula points for Ramcharan fans post-interval. That gives you some predictable and boring moments. If Tollywood continues to make films in this format, it may not get us anywhere in creative highs, but it will continue to ring in cash registers. Ramcharan improves his poker face and looks tidier and portly. He dances well and sustains himself in both the flashback and the first half. He doesn't grade his storylines well enough to select different films and infact uses regressive methods to taste success at Box Office like use of excess violence,  old comedy fare, over-mention of family tree and dynasty, and tried emotions. This time, the elements of family drama, revenge, emotions of mother-son sentiment and power-packed action with a unique twist could ensure a sustained run at the box office for "Yevadu". It should be the first hit of 2014 and could wipe out the deficit of the ten-odd films released so far. My rating for the film for its surprise thrill and watchability despite cliches is 3.25/5

"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.