The Bane of Multi-level Marketing.

Sixteen years after I received my posting from Businessline newspaper, my first byeline in the paper. An article appeared on MLM yesterday. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/money-wise/the-bane-of-multilevel-marketing/article4772529.ece

"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.

"The Great Gatsby" Film Review (English)

Finally, one of America's greatest works of fiction finds an incarnation in the big screen. This is Hollywood's sixth attempt to capture the surrealistic  almost evanscent classic by one of the most conceptual novelists  - Francis Scott Fitzgerald. I must say, it is one of the most beautiful films I have seen in a long time, probably not since "Avatar" and at the end of the 146 minutes of a magical story with a trepid ending and a tragic twist in the tail, I get a feeling that Fitzgerald's efforts have not gone in vain. He was perceived as one of the improbable screenwriters who never quite made it to Hollywood despite gallant attempts to make a film on his novels. While  Fitzgerald's other stories have been made into films  - "The Last Tycoon", "The curious case of Benjamin Button" etc., "The Great Gatsby" made many false starts and failed attempts starring many ruling stars, including Robert Redford who looks like a million-dollar baby even in night dress.

Warner Brothers has left nothing to chance this time around - the sixth time around. They roped in a starcast of the decade - Leonardo Dicaprio as Jay"Great" Gatsby, Toby Maguire as Nick Carraway, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchannan,  Joel Edgerton as Daisy's husband and our own Amitabh Bachchan as the jewish businessman in a cameo that marks the Superstar's official entry into Hollywood. Who can direct such a starcast and take the magical, make-believe, hard-to-project vigorous words of Fitzgerald? Baz Luhrrmann  - who has a mind of his own and a unique gift of collapsing song, ballads and drama into celluloid opus. His earlier films - "Moulin Rage", "Australia", "Romeo and Juliet" have marked him out for the potential in TGG in 3-D. Luhrrmann creates an extravagant biopic that sizzles and rarely fizzles out. 

Nick Carraway (Toby Maguire) as in the book is the main narrator of the film who observes that his great fortune in life was in meeting the "great" Gatsby. He is a struggling writer who lives next door to the regal mansion of Jay Gatsby, a self-made, self-obsessed billionaire who throws the biggest and the loudest parties - inviting anybody who cares for drowning in food and wine and dance on the house - more inclusive than our own IPL post-match parties. Nobody knows what he does, how he earned such obscene wealth and what his background is. One day, he gets a hand-written invite from Gatsby to attend one of his parties and Nick is thrilled and paints the whole party that he is the only "chosen" one. Indeed he is for reasons learnt later; Nick's cousin Daisy Buchannan lives on the other side of West Egg, across a Bay married to her husband, her many-affaired husband. Gatsby and Daisy have been in love since he was 17 but filmy fate gave Daisy away in arranged marriage to  Buchannans. Nick soon finds that his new friend Gatsby wants him to re-arrange love with his old flame. Sparks fly, naturally, when Daisy makes it to the party but her husband, like all husbands gets wind of the secret liaisions of his wife. Many wranglings later, there is a twist in the tail as Buchannan speeds away in a fit of rage in the sporty car of Gatsby only to dash into one of Buchannan's lady-loves and kills her. But the husband, a gasoline-filler, is fed with the notion that it is Gatsby who drove his car that killed his wife and not the real paramour. Daisy is indifferent to Gatsby because she is confused between the moral limits of marriage and the catnip pull of Gatsby. But Gatsby remains composed and intriguing till the end, Nick playing the last man standing for him, even at the funeral which is the most poignant shot in the film - none who made it to his lavish parties except Nick turn up at the grave. That's the long story that cannot be made shorter but what makes the film a visual feast is the images, the songs, the contextual and the subtext messages coming through the times and the characters set in 1920s - when American stock markets were at life-time highs, economy was over the hill and society was both loud, hedonistic and vainglorious. 

What endears the film is its many messages because Fitzgerald's novel is itself so timeless because of its metaphors and its malleability to interpretations. The West Egg can be today's Bay Area, the new-age Silicon Valley, the East Egg can be the old money, and the characters can all be so spine-chillingly true - a  billionaire who refuses to give up the ghosts of the past, his friend who refuses to talk turkey for fears of antagonising both the parties, a woman who cannot reign in her wayward husband and cannot hide her feelings and vacillates till the end, an old-world husband who goes after Munnis and Sheelas but doesn't want to dock his wife and what more, expect loyalty. It is these images that make the story burnt into relevance forever ninety years after Fitzgerald wrote in 1925. Baz Luhhrmann makes a winner with minimal distractions of 3-D technology and memorable motifs of Fitzgerald's prose. Leonardo Dicaprio stands out with a quirkacious range of expressions, he gets the best introduction and also makes the exit in a watery grave in the end - exactly like in "Titanic". Can't believe his looks kill even today since his debut in 1997. Toby Maguire has a veneer and a role that will get him many new fans than just kissing boring girl-friend and climbing walls as Spiderman. Joel Edgerton as Daisy's husband has the best presence after the two. Music and SFX also stand out - heard that most of the SFX are created in the Reliance studios of Hyderabad and Mumbai. Its a great flick and must watch for a great synthesis of an American legend of literature with an Australian legend in directing. 4.5 out of 5.

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" Film Review (English)

Mira Nair is a gift from South Asia to Hollywood for blending the silky emotions of the East with the verve and rich production values of the West. "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is one more proud addition to the magic of Mira Nair's films. Based on Mohsin Hamid's novel, Mira Nair has attempted a bold film that captures the essence of Mohsin's tale of a young man Chengez Khan who sets foot in the US, makes it big as a financial analyst in a Wall Street firm but soon finds devastating incursions into his privacy and belief systems after a xenophobic America beefs up its tirade against terrorism. Chengez Khan finds his innate world of private beliefs of faith and religion and nationhood of Pakistan awakened and harnessed in the avalanche of incidents that follow the 9/11 attacks - someone at work asks him to shave off his beard, a cop at the Subway books him under Homeland Security Act and strips him to the organ, his girl friend, a photo artiste throws open an exhibition making a gawdy collage of the symbols of religion and culture of Pakistan and finally, someone at the parking lot deflates his car tyres and spooks his dirty finger to stop fucking around in America. Until then, Chengez Khan, a composed and introverted star financial analyst who is creating ripples with his deep-dive business acumen and impeccable Americana becomes  a late believer in the causes that fire up Madarassas and Mujahiddins. His final breaking point comes in Instanbul, Turkey when Chengez Khan and his boss go to evaluate a legacy-rich Publishing company that has the most impressive imprint of middle-eastern writers. Chengez Khan gets a lecture here from the owner that going by the yardsticks of DCF Analysis and discount factors, his books maybe worth nothing in the eyes of the financial analyst, but that has spawned the most towering intellectual writers of the region which has been making waves and winning plaudits. Chengez Khan finds that the works of his own father, a Pakistani poet, are translated into Turkish by the gentlemen whom he is about to advise on business restructuring matters.  Thats the point Chengez kicks his corner office job and returns to Pakistan as a reluctant fundamentalist. The story moves, as in the book, like a narrative by the protagonist to an American journalist, who is himself a mole by an army of seals to help relieve an American researcher kidnapped by Chengez's men. 

Quite a fascinating buildup to the complex characterisation of a fundamentalist who could be one amongst us. Mira Nair uses her craft of delicate story-telling with her inimitable cinematic sensibilities. What helps the film despite its cliches on the terrorism theme are a great adapted screenplay, a terrific starcast led by Riz Ahmed (Chengez Khan), Bobby (Liev Schreiber), father (Om Puri) and lover artist (Kate Hudson). Having re-read the book since watching the film, I must say Mira Nair has outshined her films and in the process given a stratospheric lift to South Asia's hottest writer today ("How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia"). She has given a bold treatment to the issue of metrosexual men in Atlantic countries rising up in arms against the most powerful nation on earth. Not since the films of Merchant - Ivory productions have we seen a director of the calibre as much as Mira Nair who dedicates the film to Altaf Nawaz Nair, her late father. While Ismail Merchant chose films of an era of the Raj mostly writers like Ruth Jhabbervala and E.M.Forster and rarely assumed an audacity to stir the joneses, Mira Nair gives a warm and passing commentary on the travails and the colorful tapestry of the lives of South Asians. She has an eye for detail, gets under the skin of the writer, knows how to graft the writer's eye onto an effervescent screenplay and weave a story that in the end carries her distinct signature style. 

Music by William Andrews deserves immodest mention. Besides lending his own voice in some songs, Andrews gave a distinct touch to the euphonies scored in the film  - inter-mixing Sufi music, Lahore beats and haunting melodies. The output certainly heightens the film's punctuated moods to desired effect. Cinematography is another clear winner - and that seems to do so well in Mira's films. Her eye for detail and that of Declan Quinn, the cinematographer matches so well whether it is Istanbul, Manila, Lahore or New York. A lot of viewers generally get confused between Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta. IMHO, Mira Nair is a master, not an apprentice like Deepa Mehta. Give a good story to Mira Nair, she will ace it up. Give a dazzling writer's work to Deepa Mehta, she will fake it down. If you have had enough of films with Navy Seal operations and jingoistic Americana, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is a good watch despite its length of 131 minutes, which includes atleast four minutes of tobacco warnings and seven minutes of false starts to a not-so-erotic love-making scene between Kate Hudson and the Wall Street Analyst. Notwithtstanding that, it is still 4 star film.

"Greeku Veerudu" Telugu Film Review

"Greeku Veerudu" is a rehash of past films and despite  familiar tweaks, is going to be a forgettable film of Nagarjuna. Nag is a vagabond businessman in America who only believes in living life without commitments and value for relationships. His philistine ways land him in a financial mess, and he suddenly gets a missed call from his native place in AP to let his ailing grandmother catch last glimpses of him. He takes off with Nayanatara who happens to be his bete noire's (Aashish Vidyarthi) sister. The sparks fly and Nag ropes her in to play his wife. The family bonds with him and he makes amends with some familiar drama. I have never seen a film where a director (Dasaradh) has cannibalised so many of his own films  - "Sambaram", "Santosham", "Mr.Perfect" in order to create an umpteenth version of sentimental, sick family drama. He has remixed a few of scenes of "Athadu" and "Manmadhudu". The travails of the film do not end there and I will spare you the onslaught I faced for 150 minutes with a feeble mention of the tortures inflicted.

They used what is called "Demat" (sounds like a Stock Exchange term) technology to shoot sequences in US - New York and San Francisco. But what I noticed in credits is a mere mention of Zurich Airport whereas most of the American shots are all floor-adjusted in a clearly visible frame looking out of sync. For example, the Statue of Liberty is shown as a fixed shot but it looks dangerously similar to our own Tank Bund Buddha statue. NASA space centre is shown with graphics like you are floating in Birla Planetorium. Entire sequences are shown with backgrounds suggesting Europe (must be in Switzerland) but the background is meant to be in the US. It is obvious that producer of Kamakshi Movies - good friend of Nag - has cut corners with everything to give the sloppiest film of his career. Despite his 800-calorie diet and botox injections, Nag looks woefully old like never before in this movie which has an oft-beat role of lover boy-turns-saint. His body language also looks inept - in some scenes with Nayanatara and K.Vishwanath, he doesn't know what to do with his hands - the typical dilemma of a public speaker. Comedy with MS Narayana and Brahmanandam is inspid because Dasaradh uses an over-familiar terrain to crack lewd jokes and cheap tricks with Kovai Sarala in remix of blockbuster duets. When a director is overawed by the starcast and a Superstar, he will get a performance worthy of rotten tomatoes. Thats the bane of this film - something that fan-serving websites and star-struck reviewers will never accept. Watch it if you are a hardcore fan  - atleast there are a few good songs and one by S.P.B in which he creates new steps. For others, including Nayanatara and Kota and Brahmanandam and MS Narayana and Aashish Vidyarthi, this is not going to be a film to remember. Thaman SS scores a few good songs but seven songs will breed contempt in a film elongated with needless sequences, lazy shots, cheap photography and deadpan dialogues. It should be a below-average film that deserves no better than 2 out of 5.

"Bombay Talkies" Hindi Film Review

"Bombay Talkies" is the name of the latest film co-produced by India's youthful new-age directors: Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar. As the name suggests, it is meant to be an eulogy on Bollywood's century-old idioms. With the exception of Karan Johar, and to some extent, Zoya Akhtar, the other two are one of the two brilliant filmmakers who have sought new ground in bringing in realistic and hard-hitting story-telling with a rare irreverence to old norms while trying to achieve youthful yet compelling emotional connect with the audiences. The producers have selected the most apt title for a film which has four different tales rendered by these four directors - Karan, Dibanker, Zoya and Anurag with half-hour slots each in a total running time of 127 minutes (which includes the four-minute tobacco ad pre-and post interval and a gaudy "Om Shanti Om" style medley of Bollywood boys and girls - from Aamir to SRK to Ranbir and Kareena and Vidya Balan). Originally, Bombay Talkies was founded in 1934 by the First Lady of Indian Cinema - Devika Rani and her first husband Himanshu Rai. They went on to make many films which had an impact on the development of early Indian Cinema. Bombay Talkies became an icon for the arrival of Indian Cinema and subsequently, we all know how Mani Ratnam started his own Madras Talkies as a motif for South Indian Cinema.

Back to "Bombay Talkies" the movie. The four films are directed individually by the four talents above, with their respective name splashed on the screen when their film starts with a 15 second blackout separating one from another to indicate the end of one film and the beginning of the other. That way, the format is a little different from "Darna Mana Hai" where the stories lead upto the climactic story ending. That makes this a winning collaboration with a must-watch tag. What makes the four stories watchable is the bench-strength use of promising technicians like Amit Trivedi who scored thrilling music for all the four stories, inter-mixing the need to elevate the many moods essayed in each director's short story with impressive repertoire of folk music, playback, instrumentation from everyday rhythms and purcussions. Anyone who has long spotted Amit Trivedi from the time he debuted on MTV Unplugged till "DevD" OST got released will vouch that Amit Trivedi is the most-dazzling find amongst the current crop of Bollywood music composers. His music is rich, varied and culturally resonating with the heartbeats of Hindi heartland music, no wonder he still hasn't got the call from masala-oriented South film producers. 

How are the four stories? Are they real? Yes. Credible? Yes. Evocative? Yes, again. 

First story is an explicit take on Indian Male homosexuality directed by Karan Johar (what else where you expecting?). Randeep Hooda and Rani Mukherjee live their own lives in different cubicle nations within the media industry. They are almost sex-less and live a boring civil life until their frustrations surface with the entry of an intern at Rani's office. This young lad is a self-confessed Gay and he gets cosy with Rani in a platonic way only to get cosier with her husband in a plutonic way. Karan seems deft in handling the emerging theme of homosexuality and its repurcussions in conservative Indian families. The gay abandon with which Karan revels in re-creating the sexual preferences of an emerging male order makes it a subtle watch with some hummable music remixed of the old sixties by Amit Trivedi. That room, that music room of old LP records and audios owned by Randeep Hooda in the film must be any music lover's delight - it must belong to one of them - Anurag Kashyap, Producer Viacom's Raghav Behl or Farhan Akhtar, Zoya's sibling.

The second story is the most brilliant of the short films, directed by Dibaker Banerjee. It shows an in-form Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a go-nowhere dweller of a certain chawl in Mumbai, with a bed-ridden daughter who is tired of dad's old stories and a wife who juggles many jobs in three shifts. As if to make a statement on Ponzi schemes, Dibaker introduces EMU farming which has caught on with India's aspiring middle-class. One day, our Mumbai householder goes for the job of a Security Guard, misses it by a whisker and lands himself in a crowd watching Ranbir Kapoor's latest shoot. He gets a rare call from the film's Assistant Directors to enact a two-second scene - to bump into Ranbir from the other end, engrossed holding a newspaper. He exults at the opportunity and gets ten minutes to rehearse in a solitary set away from the din where he works himself up to do the role. In that interlude, he imagines having  an intense conversation with his theatre-obsessed father - brilliantly played by Sadashiv Amrapurkar - who was always pushing him to get to the basics of life. Then the shot readied, improvisations done, Nawaz goes home in a trance forgetting the small change, and the bottle of water earned as a perk for the brief role. He goes home, re-enacts the day's exciting proceedings to his daughter and wife, in a majestic  narrative without words and only flute music in background. This is the best story and my research tells that this is based on one of Satyajit Ray's famous short stories. 

The last two stories are more effusive of the magic spell of Bollywood on India's youth and children. Zoya's story is about a young boy whose father drives him to football but the boy loves the dances of Bollywood. He eulogies Katrina Kaif and becomes her in dreams and in daylight as he pursues dancing to the point of raising money for his sister. The end is filmy with sibling love and dream coming true but this is the only story which has an item song, if you can call that of Katrina's onscreen and off-screen presence in the film. The last story by the nonchalant Anurag Kashyapa is about a father (Sudheer Pandey) and son (Vineet Singh). The father's wish is to send the son with an heirloom bottle of "Murabba" (a kind of a ladoo made of sweet pumpkin) to Bollywood's Badshah's house - Prateeksha - the home of Amitabh Bachchan for a bite by the legendary actor so he can die in peace, something his father did with Yousuf Khan a.k.a Dilip Kumar. The saga is all about the days of wait and exasperation by the youth from Allahabad as he encounters many others who live on a pail of water in order to shake hands with Bollywood's glitterati. It is a pithy take by Anurag to capture the timeless appeal of Bollywood's icons. There's a sweet ending with a twist in the tale but Anurag handles it well with  raunchy wit.

On the whole, all the four stories have their signature styles of their creators who are in between their swinging and cutting-edge form. Undoubtedly, my take is that the honors go the four in this pecking order: Dibaker, Anurag, Zoya and Karan. What spoils the party in the end as we are about to applaud a rare ensemble of a talented foursome is a loud reprise to the ruling Divas of Bollywood in their audacious dream costumes - as I said from Kapoors to Khans. This must have been some producer's silly idea to endear an otherwise charming junction of upmarket, mofussil and fairy tales to the front-benchers who whistle at sighting each of the two generations of glitterati including Sridevi, Juhi and Madhuri. A great, watchable experiment and hopefully, Viacom should make it viable for more coming in this direction of sterotype-smashing cinema. 4 out of 5 for "Bombay Talkies". But I wonder why, U/A for a film that starts off the first story with hair-raising homosexuality. Maybe India will be the 15th nation in the world to endorse same-sex marriage now that the Censors have no objection to it.

"Shadow" Film Review (Telugu)

"Shadow" is one of the most-publicised films of Victory Venkatesh. The publicity was imperative because in an era of fast-changing tastes of the audience, Venkatesh has fallen way behind both in terms of recent content and record. His films were becoming monotonous and shallow - the same family drama, trump-like character played by Venky, out to sacrifice his lover at the altar of marriage with another, and then the banal ending sometimes happy and sometimes sad - he even slashed his tongue in a film. No wonder, for the last year's Sankranti, his "Bodyguard" became a washout and couldn't stand the onslaught of "Businessman". Earlier in 2013, he co-starred with Mahesh Babu in "SVSC" which became a classic hit re-starting the trend in multistarrers. But his market-cap was clearly on the wane, he got paid a mere Rs.3 crores for the blockbuster while his co-star walked away with Rs.8.5 crs. (which was more than the satellite rights earned for the entire film Rs.7 crs. won by Gemini TV). Venky and Nagarjuna, who entered Tollywood a good decade or so after Megastar Chiranjeevi never could reach the dizzy heights of either Chiranjeevi or afterwards the range of box-office collections achieved by the likes of Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Ramcharan and Allu Arjun. Venky and Nag might have touched a bare Rs.30 crs. if you count all the multiplex price collections and openings overseas. 

Why am I plodding on such long preface in a film review of "Shadow"? Thats because, given such a background, Venkatesh tries to don a different role in every sense. It has a negative shade but is positively highlighted in a manner that fits his body language and persona. "Shadow" directed by Meher Ramesh ("Billa" fame) shows Venky in a dashing new Avatar that could be lapped up by his thick-like audiences. It shows him as a multi-masked hero who  comes in different getups to finish off each villain responsible for the killing of his father Nagababu. Each time, he uses a different manner of slaying the villains from Shinde to Aditya Pancholi. How does he do it? By tail-gating Srikanth, a cop who almost nabs the villain only to pip him at the post.  Quite a fast-paced narration and gripping story with a few pointless excursions into comedy that sucks and a passable light-hearted love track with Tapsi. On the whole, what sustains the film is a commanding narrative with an occasional comedy by MS Narayana to give relief. Venkatesh, contrary to what the press and twitterati lambast, is quite good in the many costumes and hairdos. He remains the same rugged, tough-looking Venky of the earlier years, even if age catches up with him. A dignified swagger, controlled heroism, and stunning stunts make Venky a treat to watch. The composer of the season, SS Thaman scores peppy and trendy music including a haunting BGM  that uplifts the film and moves the narration. Picturisation of the songs and choreography by Raju Sundaram is quite a treat to watch. Srikanth and Tapsi hold their own in a film which tries to show Venky in his full-blooded range in all frames. Aditya Pancholi is an impactful villain whose dubbing lets his screen presence down. MS Narayana gets a few laughs with Krishna Bhagwan though he gets repetitive later. His jibes at casteism by commentating on a character called KammaReddy KapuRaju is hilarious.  Meher Ramesh's strengths are in slick direction, moving narrative and good editing (unlike in "Shakti"). He seems at home in shooting sequences in Malaysia, maybe he bootstraps the film's budget with grants from Malaysian Government to promote tourism. What bores the film is the insincere characterisation of Venky as "Chanti" before interval. 

Every actor goes through a hump in a career that gets truncated by invasions from nextgen of actors. Venkatesh, who has had an amazing run of box-office successes has given some of the most-watched Telly films in Tollywood with a selection of themes that appeals to family audiences and loyal audiences. There have been worse films in the past but "Shadow" is definitely worth a watch as I found it slick, riveting and different from the last five films done by Venky. It is not as bad as many reviewers have rubbished it to be. I am a fan of Tollywood, not a fan of Venkatesh and feel that everybody deserves a second-chance  and change of image - whether it is Balayya, Chiranjeevi, Mahesh, NTR Jr. or Prabhas or Nagarjuna. An actor like Venkatesh  deserves better reviews for "Shadow". It was a paisa vasool for all of us who watched the film. 3.25/5 it deserves.