Sankranti Movie Ratings (Telugu) "Darbar"/ "Sari Leru Neekevvaru"/ "Ala Vaikuntapuram lo"/ "Entha Manchi Vaadavura"

Sankranti films are always special. And I have seldom missed in the last twenty years. Didn't have the time to review in detail, though because reviews hardly matter for Sankranti releases. You will somehow watch with your gang of birds flocked together in urban or rustic settings. But I will give my strong opinions (as strong as ever) if it still counts:

1. "Darbar" (starring Thalaivaa Rajnikanth)...Telugu

Average film with below-par story and straight narration by AR Murgadoss. We expect nothing but mediocrity from Rajni and yet fall for his swagger and mechanical drills but are more harsh in our expectations when it comes to other Tamil Superstars like Kamal Hassan, Suriyaa or Vikram. It seems to get incurable and hopeless with each passing year for Rajni except last year when "Betta" had electrifying Rajni effects.

Rating: 2.5/5

2. "Sarileru Neekevvaru" (starring Superstar Mahesh Babu)...Telugu

A routine story with high dose of entertainment and commensurate performances by actors alongside Superstar. Notable are Prakash Raj, Rajendra Prasad, Rao Ramesh and Vijay Shanti. Rashmika is cute but over-the-top in the movie with her ibby-jibbies. Highlight of the film is Mahesh Babu's out-of-comfort-zone acting and body language that reminds you of films like "Khaleja" and "Dookudu". His characterization is also refreshing as to how a soldier would mend civilians losing their civic sense and sense of civilization. If only he allowed more space for etching out Vijay Shanti's character, the film would have gone to another level. But the soldier's take on society is both pleasant and rapturous thanks to Anil Ravipudi's directing. Despite the film moving on predictable lines post-interval, his clarity and grip on what he wants the audience to take away from the film is complete. Tamannah Bhatia gets the most flattering item song for any item girl in the industry so far. Length could have been shorter by 25 minutes. If there is anything for Mahesh Babu to consolidate his position, he should reduce focus on his good looks and screen time and invest in better and more interesting stories. Yet, 169 minutes is mostly watchable once.

Rating: 3/5

3. "Ala Vaikuntapuramlo" (starring Stylish Star Allu Arjun)...Telugu

Trivikram created an entertaining narrative of 165 minutes about a theme stealth-borrowed from an old Telugu film classic starring NTR and R Nageshwar Rao "Inti Guttu". He re-interpreted the film for the new-age audience well but there are fatal flaws in the film which are not discernible to the audience. Yes, you can ignore baby-swapping as a doable crime 20 years back. But Trivikram who defends middle-class moralities and lectures on their upkeep has created a story which has faultiness on middle-class morality. Firstly, no middle-class father foregoes his baby boy to enter a billionaire family so he may get ahead in life and riches. Secondly, no adopted son disowns his past upbringing to crave for a billionaire's mansion at the very moment the secret unfolds. Thirdly, it is irresponsible on Trivikram's part to paint the picture as rosy as a "Lion King" destiny in picturing Allu Arjun's moment of destiny just like in Walt Disney tale where a baby Simbha learns that his blood is leonine and hence cut out for bigger things like ruling the kingdom. Yes, blood is thicker than water but in reality your upbringing and environment makes all the difference in how you shape your daily moments and destiny. In characterizing the contrasting roles played by Sushant and Allu Arjun, director shows as if none of the inputs or parental guidance provided by either set of parents has any bearing on the way their personalities are shaped. This is ridiculous and self-perpetuating myth which only leads to inequalities in society. The most famous case is the "Nobel Prize Winner Sperm Bank Experiment" where someone thought it is best to impregnate as many women with the sperm bank of Nobel Prize winners so that mankind will get more geniuses like Nobel winners. Trivikram's thesis in the movie is that outrageous and preposterous. I am appalled that along with many other flaws as pointed earlier, it is middle class audiences who are raving about the film as a cult classic. Nonsense. Despite that, the film is carried entirely by Allu Arjun with a never-before performance that stands out in all departments. Thaman's BGM and musical score are also a stand-out; his transformation from copying fast-track western albums to creating new sounds with refreshing mix of traditional and western instrumentation is the story of the last three years as to who is ruling the sound waves in TFI. Stunts are always creative in Trivikram's films but when you are surrounded by so many bashers, how does anybody get so creative to wield a woman's dupatta or a car windshield to polish off the villains beats me! Entertainment quotient is high though comedy content is low. What disappointed me is lack of clarity in Trivikram's taking in the film right from points mentioned above to Murali Sharma's unrepentant characterization. At least a minute out of the 165 minutes could have been taken to round off Murali Sharma's litany of crimes. Watchable once.

Rating: 3/5

4. "Entha Manchi Vaadavuraa" (Starring Kalyan Ram)...Telugu

Vegesna Satish comes with interesting concepts that hold some message for the new generation drifting apart from the world we grew up in the 60s and 70s. This time he comes with a theme of filling the void left by growing generation gap in our society. Like buying bottled water and twiggy-ordered food, he builds a beautiful plot around hero Kalyan Ram and his fiancé Mehreen. Kalyan sees every family has an emotional bond missing with the loss of a dear one be it a grand-father, son, sister, daughter or an aunt and so he sets up a company which "leases" the missing kin until the emotional needs are fulfilled. It is a slow narrative of 144 minutes with only three songs but content is unique and layered with good performances by hero and heroine besides a galaxy of vintage actors like Annapurna, Suhasini, Sarath Babu and Giri Babu. Like "Shatamaanam Bhavati", Satish has a knack of presenting relevant messages to keep our social structure intact in the wake of increasing nuclearisation of families and isolation of the elderly generation with the dawn of new technologies and general apathies. It is tough to expect jazzed up entertainment in this kind of narrative but if you are patient for the first thirty minutes, you will get some moments of epiphany in the film. Music by Gopi Sundar is outstanding. Watchable once with the elders.

Rating: 2.75/5

#Darbar #SarileruNeekevvaru #AlaVaikuntapuramlo #EnthaManchiVaadavuRaa" #SankrantiReleases #SankrantiMovies

Narayanaguda Nostalgia

Narayanaguda. YMCA. Used to be an epic dimension of our daily lives in 80s. It is all set to change from this Sankranti as the last of the metro train stations (part of the green line) will open this festival connecting one of the busiest areas to the bustling Hyderabad Metro to one of the most vibrant areas which had its sparkling days filled with fun and frustrations (of traffic). Narayanaguda metro once opened will go all the way to Mahatma Gandhi Bus Depot in Gowliguda taking the narrowest roads of Sultan Bazar, Badi Chowdi, Chikkadpally all the way to Secunderabad Railway Station. This part of Hyderabad, this dense part of Hyderabad is where we lived for a large part of our lives once my parents decided to settle down in Hyderabad. Where do I start recollecting the symbols of our childhood which have now disappeared or relocated to other ares?
Padmavati Stationery. Still one of the best stationery shops for artists and students with the best of paper and drawing materials but fragmented so much that each brother of the third generation has taken one part of the Stationery business.

The Petrol Pump of Narayanaguda has survived. But opposite Padmavati Stationery there was another famous stationery shop called Anil Stationery. While Padmavati was run by close-knit Vysya community, Anil Stationery had two big shops run by marwaris. Both these shops competed with cut-throat pricing and competitiveness but once the patriarch died, both the groups fell out but Anil Stationery folded up sooner, giving way to a commercial complex that houses some quick service restaurant and another Padmavati branch of the brothers who split.

Next to Anil was the Camlin shop - still the original favorite for school-kids - which had the best of charcoal pencils, postal colors and orange-color geometry boxes proudly branding Camlin. That shop disappeared almost a decade back but while it lasted it was the sole distributor of Camlin products and one of the best-kept secrets of Narayanaguda. They hardly sold retail products and encouraged walk-in customers to buy wares from Padmavati or Anil next-door. But our family had a great relationship and I used to draw and paint in my middle-school using all the special high-quality colors from Camlin including oil pastels and oil colors. The high-point for me was in 1979 when I won the All India Children's Painting Competition conducted by an agency as popular as Shankar's.
Right next to our house, which was atop Padmavati was a famous tailor called YAK's tailors. The fellow was more famous than today's Reid and Taylors or Manyavars or Kochin's. He was designing bespoke suits and exotic dresses for aristocratic men and corporate executives. I don't remember having anything bought for myself because I was still a toddler and by the time I wore pants I was out of that area. My father had a great rapport with YAK's. The highlight of YAK's was in the 80s when Megastar Chiranjeevi burst open in Cinema. After the film "Devanthakudu" was released which had Chiranjeevi tame the mighty god Yama, YAK's owner got an idea to produce a film with Chiranjeevi by launching his daughter as heroine. The film was titled "Dhairyavanthudu". I don't remember much about the film but it bombed at the box-office leaving YAK's Tailors financially crippled. Within a few months, YAK's folded up and disappeared from the Streets of Narayanaguda.

RK Library used to be at the place opposite Deepak bus stand. It was the single-best library of the twin cities and used to be one of the heritage icons of Hyderabad. Everything from "Competition Success Review" to "India Today" to Archie Comics to TinTin to Amar Chitra Katha and PG Wodehouse used to be there. It was the best watering hole for youngsters as well as elders looking for sensational headline copies of "Blitz" and "Illustrated Weekly of India" or "Sunday" magazine. Within a constrained room of 300 sqft, Rashid and his father who ran the shop with passion and commitment to keep the reading habit alive those days. It formed the bedrock of my reading habit, made me win several quizzes including the Tinkle Quiz where I stood Second in 1983 beaten only by Vamsee Juluri, actress Jamuna Ramana Rao's prodigal son. RK Library, when I last saw a few years ago disappeared as Rashid became less interested to keep the circulating library alive, his interests were into skating since then and that became his main bread-winner vocation. What I miss is those scribbles in a long-rule registers Rashid used to maintain which had on each page the name of the book renter, the rent of one rupee to two rupees per day for each magazine and the deposit money of around Rupees Twenty Five to Fifty. Magazines like "Time", "Newsweek", "Life" and "Punch" had higher rents and hiked deposit fees. It used to be quite a sight those days to see all the boys and girls park their BSA-SLR bicycles and pretend to browse the books and periodicals when actually we were all interested to observe each other and flirt if possible. After we moved out of the area and moved away from Narayanaguda, when I started building my own book collection which is sizable by any standard, I always had one eye on Rashid's collection. If there was anybody on earth who had all the books of PG Wodehouse, I knew it has to be Rashid. But Alas! I lost touch at the crucial time he made up his mind to dispose off all his collection to one of the used-book sharks of the city.
As you walk down the path of Deepak theater from YMCA, many other shops which had epic followership have disappeared from the street. Keerti Medical Shop next to the Irani Restaurant was the most famous medical shop of those days run by Gujarati brothers - met with the same fate as Padmavati. Lack of succession planning and split among the brothers. Bapujee Electricals was another famous electrical shop which had seen better days. Swatantra Medicals, one of the best medical shops opposite Deepak. It survives but as a pale shadow of what it used to be. BN Brothers - undoubtedly the best grocer and supermarket of the 70s and 80s - it had the best variety chocolates, talcum powders, dry fruits and other confectionary items. Households flocked to BN Brothers to give any fancy general store item or edible item including the knick knacks for birthday parties. Next to them was a bakery run by Aga Khan muslims - it had the best salt biscuits and crescent chand biscuits and fruit juices those days. Again disappeared. Rao & Co, another famous dealer of electronic items had a loyal customer from our house, my mother. In those days, my father had a salary of six hundred rupees and my mother drew one hundred and fifty rupees from their vocations but Mr Rao always found a financing solution to everything we added in the eighties including USHA sewing machine, Dyanora TV, Philips Radio, Sony Taperecorder and so on. The last time my mother and I visited Mr Rao was in late nineties when cable television already became a rage and my mother bought another color TV for my Baamma on finance.

Back those days, it was possible to breeze through any distance of unto 3 kms in manual-pulled rickshaws. It cost us just fifty paise to go to Chikkadpally to meet my cousins. And most theaters were in the vicinity of Narayanaguda. Shanti theater is still around, Deepak was next-door too, Venkatesa and Srinivasa we used to walk to, Basant theater and Venkataramana and Padmavati theaters we used to walk to. We took rickshaws only to go to RTC X Road theaters like Sangam, Sudarshan, Sandhya and Subhash (now Usha Mayuri). Odeon and Saptagiri came much later. Or even to go to Thyagaraya Gaana Sabha in Chikkadpally. That reminds me of Kishore Theater and the funny story about it when my father started practicing and also did some project consultancy.
Kishore was one of the best theaters those days and had an unsusually elegant facade. You could walk into the door by buying the ticket right next to the door - it gave you a nice cosy feeling. No other theater gave you that ambience except maybe Liberty theater in Himayatnagar. But Kishore was a great theater and it was so close, closer to our home than either Deepak or Shanti theaters. So close that once my parents goaded me and my brother Aditya to go to "Alien" a scary movie about a creature popping out of your stomach in space. The movie scared my younger brother so much that he said I am walking back home while I said I will hang on. He ran out of the theater scared while I selfishly watched the movie - but it was so safe and close those days to watch a movie in Kishore. If I remember, two of the biggest flop films of the 80s had their movies inaugurate the theater. One was a Jitendra starrer "Aasha" and the other was a Telugu film called "Buchibabu" starring ANR and Jayaprada. Both bombed at the box office but Kishore gave us amazing memories including films like "Rahasya Goodachari" starring Krishna and Jayaprada and countless Hollywood films including Bond thrillers. Then all of a sudden the theater was shut and everything from Supermarket to Furniture shops sprung up on the outer facade of the theater.

One of the less-known secrets of Kishore was that he asked my father to prepare a project report on alternatives to a movie-flex. My father gave a detailed project report and said it will cost Rupees Fifty Thousand those days.The owner agreed to pay but after collecting the Report dodged payment for several weeks and months. Eventually, my father realized he rendered charity to the owner. After a gap of over a decade, Kishore became SaiKishore theater and I remember watching a movie called "Alladin" in 90s. That was the last we saw Kishore screen a film. It went the same way as Sangeet. In the entire street of Narayanaguda, only one theater remains and that is Shanti.
As you stroll past Shanti theater, few shops retained their character and personality. A general store run by an aunty, a typewriting institute run by two committed brothers which gave Oriental Typewriting a run for money, an Irani restaurant that was buzzing with people right until midnight, an Excise Police Station and the Narayanaguda Police Station. All of them have disappeared. What remains are few icons like the YMCA, the watch repair shop tucked between two garment outlets, the Andhra Bank and the Sivananda Mithai Bhandar (which still has the best Palak Pakoda in town!),Kalpana Hair Dresses, the Cane Furniture Shops and Canara Bank. Unlike the Sultan Bazar merchants, the Narayanaguda shop-keepers never got pressurized to move out elsewhere. But they were disrupted, or got short-changed by the cross-currents of technology, business cycles, family feuds or change in consumer demand and tastes. It makes for a more detailed examination of street history that changed forever well-before the Metro Station can dismounted many motifs and icons of small business history for good. Narayanaguda was once the epicenter of everything happening in Hyderabad. This post doesn't cover so many other outlets including Balaji Bajrang Mithai Bhandar (still has the best Dhokla, Ajmer Kalakhand, Gulab Jamun in town), PT Reddy Museum (which had a great collection of a Dentist who used to have a TV Set - the only one those days  - so residents of Narayanaguda used to flock to the TV every Sunday when Doordarshan started showing movies every Sunday, Srinivasa Hotel (which had good idly and Sambar) and Vijay Cottage (which had good sweets and tasty curd).

Many of them had seen epic booms but couldn't survive to pass on the baton to the next generation. Like Apollo Ice Creams which had the best Tutty Frutty ice creams and other mouth-watering desserts in Hyderabad (almost like Ajanta Cool Drinks in Vijayawada near Besant Road!).
Narayanaguda had other infamous bits of history too. In the 1980s, the YMCA Chowrastha next to Shanti theater used to see everything from 7th Class to Tenth Class exam question papers leaked on the streets in the wee hours of the day. It was a sight to behold when anxious parents of mediocre students jostled with each other to pay hundreds of rupees to buy subject question paper - and all this happened right in front of the Narayanaguda Police Station. With Metro Station getting hooked to Narayanaguda at Madapati Hanumantha Rao school, a new era dawns in an area which had the best entertainment, education and shopping ecosystem once upon a time in Hyderabad. It is all history now.

"Bigil" (Tamil)/ "Whistle" (Telugu) Film Review

"Bigil" is a fine example of how a blockbuster unfolds and ends with 178 minutes of Vijayana. Yes, its a sports film and also has gangster movie shades. Hence, you see a combo of "Chak De" and "Baasha". Director Atlee has given a pass to many rules of soccer game but the energy levels never drop - infact the second half is the brightest second half ever seen in recent films. Vijay shines well both as father and son Bigil and this must be his finest performance. BGM by AR Rahman and almost all the songs scored are gold-diggers which will haunt you long. Go for 'Bigil' ('Whistle' in Telugu) even if you are not a Vijay fan. From the times of doing remakes of Mahesh Babu films and doing chocolate boy films, Vijay has come a long way. As for Atlee who is now sought after by the likes of Shah Rukh Khan and NTR Jr to direct films for them, this is crowning glory. If only the first half is pruned a bit, and those over-the-top football moments edited out, "Bigel" would have been a cult classic. The highlight of the film is the sequence of getting a housewife and an acid attack victim into the team - much impact without much ado there. Despite the director and the hero flaunting their religious leanings in close camera shots, the film will mint its way to the top this year at least in Tamil belt. 

Rating: 3.25/5
 
#Vijay #Bigil #Whistle #Kollywood #Tollywood #ARRahman

“Syraa” (Telugu/Hindi/Tamil/Kannada) film review

Director Surendar Reddy has given an exciting and energetic twist to Megastar Chiranjeevi’s most ambitious project to date about Pre-Independent India’s forgotten freedom fighter Syraa Narasimha Reddy. With an iconic star cast assembled from Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Bhojpuri film industries, Surendar weaves a inspiring and pacy, sheer pacy narrative in 170 minutes about the times before Sepoy Mutiny or Rani Lakshmi Bhai with some highly convoluted cinematic liberties.  Is it watchable? Absolutely, you will not sit restless even for a minute. Is it convincing? Yes, even if you nod in dissent because the director doesn’t let the action scenes steal the intensity and depth of emotions. Until the interval bang, the film builds steady tempo but after that assumes an unstoppable momentum right to the finish - never letting any scene go waste in highlighting the steadfast patriotism and leadership qualities of Syraa in galvanising other satraps and the masses into revolting against the British. To be fair, the film has always hid the making and the production values in the shooting phase and that makes watching the film an epic cinematic  experience truly worth it. 

Authentically, we may have our doubts about the claim that Syraa single-handedly eliminated 10,000 British soldiers but the bone-chilling sequences of his rise and his bradvado in death deserve to be well-told and captured with all the paraphernalia that a Tollywood film can afford. From that standpoint, #Syraa is another Pyrrhic victory for how good an action film about a lesser-known freedom fighter can be without the fuss about a Mangal Pandey or a Manikarnika or the distractions of “Thugs of Hindoostan”. #Syraa is a winner in all departments and deserves to be more widely watched for the crafts in display. Ratnavelu’s cinematography, Julius Packam’s background score and Amit Trivedi’s high-pitch compositions all stand out in enhancing the dramatic appeal of the script.  There are quite a few spectacular moments which elevate the wow factor of the film. What deserves mention is that, Chiranjeevi and Ramcharan gave such free hand to director Surendar Reddy in extracting an intense portrayal of a warlord who tames the British in his own crude ways before more follow. Having two fair damsels like Tamannaah and Nayanataara, nothing stops Chiranjeevi from serenading them in dream sequences with silly steps but no, he didn’t and that raised the dignity and stature of the megastar in submitting himself to the script in his 151st film. Entries by special stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sudeep, Vijay Sethupathy, Jagapathi Babu, keep the excitement alive and the variety high, their exits equally dramatic and make you thirst for more. For a change, Tamannaah outshines Nayanataara. - a rarity considering the experience of the latter and the girlish tendencies of the former. Chiranjeevi delivers yet another mature and convincing performance as Syraa N Reddy, his dialogues are few, his emoting with eyes powerful and his stunts well-worth it. For someone who was obsessed with telling the tale of Syraa, he deserves credit but for whom the Telugu would have lost another opportunity to hear about another freedom fighter who never entered folklore. Some of the dialogues by Sai Madhav embellished by Parachuri brothers were epic but some more mention about the contemporaries and about the economic hardships of the Telugu would have added insights. Surprisingly, production values of the film stand out without much fuss -  a rare feat considering Surendar Reddy has never before directed a historical or a mythological. The film’s only shortfall is the degree of skulduggery and atavistic violence which perhaps is justified given the time of the protagonist. As the titles roll on, we noticed only one glaring omission of the long list of freedom fighters who took the mantle on after the first war of independence - Veer Savarkar. How did they miss him? On the whole, a well-made film and watchable once. Watch it for the screen presence of Megastar and many other megastars who set the screen on fire with great performances. Even if you like nothing about the star cast, the story itself will draw you in from the first frame. Vouch for it.

#Rating 3.75/5

#Syraa #SyraaNarasimhaReddy #MegastarChiranjeevi #AmitabhBachchan #VijaySethupathy #Sudeep #JagapathiBabu #SurendarReddy #AmitTrivedi #Tamannah #Nayanataara #JuliusPackam #Tollywood #Bollywood #FreedomFighters

"Gaddalakonda Ganesh" (Telugu) Movie Review

"GG" is a crude attempt to showcase the transformative power of cinema on hard-core criminals, if at all. Varun Tej plays the infamous and cold-blooded gangster who is chased by an aspiring Assistant Director (played by Atharvaa) to make a larger-than-life film on his life. How Good is it? It's a long 173 minute watch which has flashes of brilliance in second half and around interval bang with good performance by Varun Tej and great performance by Atharvaa (who has better screen presence). The film's chief fault is the dosage of violence and adult-content in the first half which should deter family audience and kids away and is longer by at least 25 minutes. Sans that, the film takes off in the second half with pace, energy and twists and surcharged emotions. 

What redeems the film is the build-up in the second half and the balance achieved by Harish Shankar to give equal footage to the hero of the film who wants to highlight the "villain" of the film as the hero - this rarely happens in star films. The love angle of Pooja Hegde and the remix hit from "Devata" gives good relief from the tiring violence but still the soul of the original song is not transmitted - as it happens in most remix songs. Varun looks menacing in his portrayal but could have used a standard one-liner to register mass-appeal presence - its a missed opportunity. The Mega Factory brandsters have done the right thing by anointing Varun Tej in titles as Mega "Prince" because Varun is the closest the Mega factory have to Prince Mahesh Babu. The film can pull more masses into building the market-cap for Varun Tej given the brighter second half. As it is, Varun has had better luck amongst the next-gen of Mega family and this could still achieve more. Harish Shankar has tweaked the mass elements of "Jigarthanda" and given good uplift to both Varun Tej and Atharvaa who is the real show-stealer. Music by Mickey J Meyer is forgettable and inept. Entertaining but could have been cleaner and crisper.
Rating: 2.75/5
#GaddalakondaGanesh #VarunTej #Atharvaa

"Nani's GangLeader" (Telugu)

Once in a while, a Telugu film comes with a winning script which defies genre, packs a punch and loads of entertainment in each scene, pulls you deep inside a pacy narrative with great story-telling, energetic performances and hits the bulls' eye with a non-formulaic approach. Director Vikram K Kumar is known for making films where the dimension of time is sliced in clock-wise and anti-clock-wise directions often confusing the viewers without any defined storyline. But in NG, he surprises us with a well-written script and simpler narrative nuanced as the story unfolds; he puts an unthinkable starcast and concocts an indigenous but rare story that can only happen in crime-fiction novels. Yet, the output is engaging, outrageous, funny and thoroughly entertaining, joined by cinematic twists and a social cause at the end. The story has an audacious premise to start with - a gang of five different-aged females come together to polish off a deadly killer who killed one each of their respective members. Enter Naani, the gang-leader who comes with his own agenda who offers to help the gang reach their targeted villain. What conspires later is a premium range of thrills audiences haven't been treated before in a long-time with lots of fun and fluent narration. The last time I experienced new thrills of this variety was when I watched Gunnam Gangaraju's "Aithe" which was a path-breaking film defying all genres and yet wholesomely entertaining. NG is still a few notches below Yeleti's "Aithe" but nevertheless good to watch once.

Naani pulls off another sensational performance sublimating his screen-presence to accommodate senior talents like Lakshmi and Sharanya and also sharing his screen space with a villain Karthikeya who is at his swashbuckling best. There are moments when Karthikeya steals the show over Naani, Lakshmi dominates Naani with her inimitable style of acting.   In over 157 minutes, director weaves a predictable story with intensity and adrenalin-pumping action - romantic track is subtle and neat. He takes time to build the tempo in the first half but makes up for lost time with a brilliant climax. Technically, the film should have been a clean "U" certificate except for the gaffe in the first half and second half about male dating - oops...it still draws good laughs thanks to Vennela Kishore. Naani deserves a pat for choosing a film where story is the real hero - no swagger, no female skin-show, no indulgent talk. His filmography reminds you of the Chiranjeevi's first fifty films where story defined everything - a lesson here for all the rising stars, superstars, power stars, omega stars and rebel stars whose self-centered dialogues and narcissistic camera angles have been depriving the audiences of great cinema. Naveen Nooli's editing seems like a masterclass in editing and provides good support to Anirudh's music score. There are only four songs in the film but the pacing of the songs and the BGM with music leveraged out of the four tunes make it a draw. After "Jersey", this looks like a film which will keep the cash registers ringing for Nani. Karthikeya, the hero who looks like an Adonis perhaps gets the most stylish villain role that Tollywood hasn't seen for a while. By insisting on better shot-selection and introduction and build-up of his character, Karthikeya steals thunder from Nani in the same way Vijay Deverekonda did in "Evade Subramanyam". Flaws of logic permeate the script on why police are kept in the dark, and how banks share CCTV footage so easily and so on. Despite all that and the predictability of the film, a Paisa-vasool film and a great family entertainer. Must watch.

Rating: 3.5/5

#Nani'sGangLeader #GangLeader #Nani #Lakshmi #Saranya #VikramKKumar #VennelaKishore #Anirudh #NaveenNooli #MaitriFilms #Tollywood #NaturalStarNani #NaaniGangLeader #NanisGangLeader

"Saaho" (Telugu/Hindi/Tamil/Malayalam)

How do you evaluate 171 minutes of action flick laced with stunning background score, melodious songs, deafening-decibel graphic violence amidst a neat romantic track between Shraddha Kapoor and Prabhas, and intense villains strategically chosen from various languages? It is a mixed bag, and half-way through you realize you are in a dead-slow track with convoluted story-line which defies logic - its a story of a team of cops who set out to unmask the great gangster group of a walled city called Waji City (where the hell is this sky-scraper paradise?). The twists of director Sujith's screenplay are all about who is  the real cop, who is fake,  who is under-cover and who is finally uncovered.

As you see, there is limited room for maneuvre in the story plot - you will have to introduce a bevy of villains, the team of investigators, the hero, the heroine and then build the interplay with some concocted humor that doesn't register. Within the framework imposed by the director, and that is the right thing to evaluate the film rather than get swayed by the memes unleashed by anti-"rebel" forces on the social media, Sujith does a neat job in giving us an authentic film without the bells-and-whistles as seen in a "Dhoom" franchisee or the ultra-sophisticated stunts of a MI series. He is aided by two technicians who give life-support to the skeletal script - Ghibran's BGM score and Madhie's cinematography. Both of them give the surreal texture, feel and mood-mixing to the various high-octane scenes of the film. Subtract Ghibran's score from the film and see the movie rating drop by 1.5 points - his work is so priceless in the film with a range of techno-instrumentation.

Who fails Sujith? It is the editor Sreekar Prasad who seems to have gone for many breaks instead of chopping chunks of mindless violence. You don't need too many stunts to project heroism and Prabhas has shown it so well in "Mirchi" his last film before the blockbusterization of his career started. These stunts, and many dragging scenes in the first half make it boring to watch - and they don't sit easy with whatever little messaging Sujith and Prabhas wanted to give.

The best part of the film is not Prabhas but "others" including a cute-looking Shraddha Kapoor who gets her most meaty role as a cop who can also prance around in vest-applied shining skin in exotic bridges wedged between snow-capped mountain ranges. But the real "others" who shine the most are Arun Vijay, Prakash Rawalade and Chunky Pandey. Normally, Tollywood directors can inter-mix three dozen villains in six frames without anyone being remembered beyond their names but Sujith has characterized each of the mean-looking men so well that every one of them right from the man who played villain in "Pandem Kodi" to  Mandira Bedi to the one who played the bad guy in "Chatrapati" has a space to die for in the film - and that is no mean feat. Entertainment cannot be a given in a film of this genre - fans and reviewers must note.

Prabhas could have easily settled for a cool Telugu film after the monstrous success of "Baahubali" but he re-invested another 1000 days into the making of "Saaho" and backed it with his home production team. Hitherto, nobody from the South - Kamal Hasan, Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh, Nagarjuna, Dhanush or Rana Daggubati - has ever scaled this kind of altitude with so much audacity before - with back-to-beat hype. Even if the film fails to deliver as per the audience's expectations, Prabhas deserves a pat - so what if he fails grand. He could have shied away like NTR or Mahesh Babu but he stood there like a rock knowing all the brickbats and bouquets will come his way. Those few dialogues in the film about hitting six out of the park in a stadium or that dialogue by Murali Sharma that Saaho is like a feel-good ad that comes before a film - visuals can be disturbing even if the content is good - they pretty sum up South India's most audacious challenge to Bollywood. No, this is not as bad as "Rebel". No, this is not as repetitive as "Dhoom". No, this is not as bad as "2.0". No, this is not as bad a film as the herds are branding. If you can sit through the first half till the first twist comes, you may find the second half interesting and pleasing to watch, never mind the elaborate overlay of action stunt excesses that the director relies upon. A reviewer cannot convince anybody but having seen far more worse films from the South including Shankar's "I" or Muragadoss's "Spyder" - I must say this: the makers of the film UV Creations didn't hide the genre of the film in the teaser, they didn't mislead the audience in the trailer (unlike Shankar's "I" where a lion-man is shown as if it is the third role of the hero), they never projected it as a message-oriented film, they gave the right high-octave moments of the film without giving away the plot till the movie released. They packed quite a punch in this screenplay based film. For all that and taking away what could have been missed opportunity, I stick to my rating. Audience can check my ratings of other Prabhas films on my blog and elsewhere where my reviews abound.

Go with an open mind, and decide if you can experience the thrills of an action thriller.

Rating: 2.75/5

#Saaho #Prabhas #Sujith #Ghibran #ShraddaKapoor #ArunVijay #ChunkyPandey #PrakashRawalade #JackieShroff #MandiraBedi