"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

"Uthama Villain" (Telugu/Tamil) Movie Review

Kamal Hassan’s most-awaited movie already raised huge expectations with a five-star trailer and a once-in-a-lifetime starcast - of Nazar, Pooja Kumar, Jayaram, Urbashi, Andrea Jermea, Parvati Menon and the legendary directors K Balachander and K Vishwanath - two directors who gave the actor his coveted cult status and critical acclaim. It is quite an eponymous moment for Kamal Hassan to see such an ensemble fire as a film unit. But does it have anything to fire? Thats the question that haunts you throughout the 172 minute extravaganza. 

The story doesn’t add up to the standards of a Kamal film. Manoranjan is a superstar with a midas touch and a madcap following who is still remote-controlled by his father-in-law K Vishwanath. But Mano wants to do one last film with his mentor and director Margadarsi (K Balachander). He convinces his mentor to direct him with lot of emotional blackmail which turns out to be for a bona fide reason as we later understand. But Balachander doesn’t direct without a good story - that story is a leaf out of history, it resembles a routine Chandamama tale of a king treacherously murdered by his minister (Nazar) who becomes a king and wants to ensnare the king’s daughter Pooja Kumar. Somehow Kamal fakes a fatal illness with the help of his lady doctor in front of Balachander  and manages to convince him to wield the megaphone. Thats just one half of the story, the other half of the story is about Kamal’s aborted love affair before marriage and the love-child  born out of that relationship - which comes back to move him. There is another side of Kamal’s story - his official family of wife and son who are living their own lives of desperation without staying connected to Kamal. The story telling moves in tandem with these two characters  - of Kamal as a cine-star and Kamal as a historical character  who gets famous for coming out alive each time flirting with death. He becomes an instrument for Pooja Kumar to avenge the death of her father by killing Nazar. The story despite its dual time settings doesn’t have the depth and variety to sustain your attention even as the director Ramesh Arvind gives a visual feast with great music  by Ghibran.

Story and screenplay by Kamal himself hands it on a platter for Ramesh Arvind but the overall output is not entertaining for a biopic hyped beyond expectations. The treatment is casual, lacks the seriousness, entertainment, twists  and the methodicity associated with Kamal’s films with grip on story-telling, pace, and multi-dimensions of his own characters. Twenty minutes into the film which is but a film in an actual film (because Balachander’s film within the film itself is titled “Uthama Villain”) the narrative fizzles out- it is either Kamal the star doting on his children drifting away or in making it out with his doctor friend in a drunken state or it is back to Kamal the ballad artiste  egged on by a princess to checkmate Nazar. The ballads are the soul of the film, no doubt, giving a rich lift to the Thaiyam dance form. Ghibran’s  music is a highlight of the musical numbers sought in the song-and-dance format of the embedded film with mesmerising makeup of both Kamal, Pooja and Nazar. It has been axiomatic for Kamal to create a deviant spectrum of characterisation far-removed from a real-life character  played with  aplomb and the deviant spark  - in this case, Uthama character - wins the acclaim. 

Sure, it could have happened again but Kamal didn’t get it right this time in UV- it is either deadpan humour or a character which insinuates the dramatic personal life of Kamal Hassan  - the flip side of being known as a catnip among women. It is this autobiographical insinuation which fails to take us on an excursion that disconnects us from reality into a world of surreal histrionics. While the character of Uthama tugs at your heart, the Superstar character gets you uncomfortably close to the inner thoughts and feelings that could be troubling Kamal the Superstar in real life with a string of  failed marriages to a series of much-publicised affairs beginning with Sripriya and so on. Did Kamal who penned the dialogues for the film too anticipate an emotional upheaval with his audience - these thoughts distract your attention in an otherwise passable fare but requiring lots of patience and veneration-filled optimism for the consummate actor and his masterly mentors - K Balachander and K Vishwanath. While K Vishwanath peters out in his performance, Balachaner stands out in one last hurrah of a performance. Director Ramesh Arvind and Kamal make Balachander hog all the screen with a fiery performance and impressive lines. Whoever dubbed for Balachander in Telugu deserves kudos. There is a deliberate intent to show Balachander in leniency with Kamal throughout the film except the first shot when the latter approaches him for a film collaboration. What surprises us is that Balachander would have thoroughly disapproved of the plot within the main film - Uthama Villain because he likes arts and folk arts but not so much as to make a film out of a fairy tale. Balachander’s films were steeped in reality and middle-class values - this one had neither realism nor morals that the middle classes keep up with. But the most delectable part of the film is the precious relationship between KB and Kamal and the climax scene does bring out tears. If the film deserves a watch, it is for Balachander’s performance alone and not Kamal’s for a change. K Vishwanath on the other hand, gives a lackadaisical performance. He is unconvincing as a tough father-in-law who is a control freak with an overarching influence on Kamal. Both KB and KV scenes are rich with nostalgic photo frames showcasing some great moments with Kamal, Rajini, Sivaji, and even Vani Ganapathy with Kamal on their wedding day. 

What bores us, though,  is the mutual admiration society formed between the trio of Kamal, KB and KV. The moment sympathy for Kamal grows, the movie becomes a celebration of the legend that is Kamal as everybody bends over forwards to make him feel good and blessed. That part, this celebratory part is a botched opportunity for Ramesh Arvind - if only he could have used the presence of two national-award winning directors to give their two cents on the craft of film-making or the nuances of finer acting through Kamal, it  would have made for different viewing. But Alas, the movie continues in its one-dimensional tirade of father-children-wife affections and the ballads galore. Performances-wise Parvati Menon, Pooja Kumar and Andrea get their share of sizzle - for Andrea it is the last intimate scene in the car with three men travelling together including Kamal. For Parvati, atleast two scenes stand out. And for Pooja, it is the song “Kanuke Bondumalli/Kaadalaaan…” where she essays a well-rehearsed dancing performance. Urmila gives her melancholic best in the hospital scene. Nazar gives an off-beat performance as a scheming minister who is both stupid and wicked at times. He produces some unconventional comedy with Kamal - a feat that never happened in his previous films. 

Kamal does his best to best the film with his histrionics but a lot of scenes look contrived - including his opening duet with Pooja and the scenes with children. One scene with his son stands out as well as one or two comedy scenes with Nazar as an imbecile Minister. Technically, the film resonates with grandeur in music thanks to Ghibran, in cinematography and in set design and artworks. Despite all that, film doesn’t score high as an output that should be one of Kamal’s most-watched films. This is because of the fatal flaw in story selection, as already pointed, with a bias for autobiography and the deja vu characterisation of the superstar - nothing new and fresh in Kamal’s portrayal as a father who errs and repents (“Indrudu Chandrudu”), alcoholic (“Sagara Sangamam”), romantic (“Panchatantram” and “Sati Leelavati”). He didn’t push new boundaries in acting with this film in both the characters except in the make-up department (which has always been the brightest spots in his films). In this film, he has also attempted a lot of singing which might not have registered well with the audience - used to leading singers like SPB or Hariharan as playbacks. In the Telugu version, Kamal dubbed in  his own voice instead of SPB which shows that he is passionate and experimental - but this could have been done when he had seen better days not when the payoffs are huge now. It appears Kamal has stopped investing in stories that pulsate with scope for performance. Instead, he is choosing stories with flimsy characters and somehow fit like a larger china box in a smaller china box - this kind of approach has outlived its utility because the audience are tiring of Kamal’s antics moving on predictable grooves. For almost a decade now, Kamal did films in the genre of comedy  - effectively limiting his own charishma, making him a puppet with many other puppets on screen. Then he realised he should fire on all cylinders with roles like dime a dozen as in “Dashavataram”. It met with limited success but not the levels that shake the box office. In between, he picked successful remakes of Hindi or Malayalam films or acted in crime stories that made his producers reimburse fatter bills. But the soul of his performance is yet to return in more than a decade - and we are still awaiting that perfect moment. Instead, Kamal is seeking more pleasures in selecting unimaginative plots with devious digs at Vaishnavism, brahminism, terrorism and so on. Time for a refreshed study  of one’s potential and what one is actually  doing. Kamal Hassan’s latest film proves that having charisma, superstar persona, raising controversies  and hyping it up with a five-star trailer are not enough to deliver a wholesome visual extravaganza. “Uthama Villain”is not that Utham. But for Balachander’s arresting presence and performance, this film, despite the highs in art department and choreography and music slips into an average category of 2.5. KB gives it a notch better rating. Barely watchable otherwise.

Rating: 2.75/5

#UthamaVillain #KamalHassan #KBalachandar #UthamaVillainTamil #UthamaVillainTelugu #Eros #Ghibran #KVishwanath #Kollywood #Tollywood #MovieReviews #UthamaVillainReview

"Uthama Villain" - the magic of music in Kamal Hassan's films continues!

Kamal Hassan’s “Uthama Villain” raised sky-high expectations as the Telugu audio got launched last Sunday. It was entertainment to see Kamal Hassan’s spectacular entry splitting at the centre of curtains after amplifying late K Balachander’s memorable tribute to the great actor. SPB’s lyrical affections on Kamal elevated the mood to infinite nostalgia. I had followed Kamal Hassan’s films since childhood and despite the fact that he didn’t have the mass-hysterical following of Rajinikanth, he had his own indomitable footprint in South and North Cinema (the few Hindi films he starred in). But this is not the subject today. I wanted to write about  the audio of “Uthama Villain” and make a fleeting mention of Kamal’s taste for high-caliber, different sounding music.

“Uthama Villain” has music by Ghibran, the most happening music composer in Tamil and Telugu cinema today. Not the first time he scored music for Kamal - he did for “Vishwaroopam-2” and “Paapanashanam” earlier. Before that Kamal rotated many music directors  - DeviSriPrasad, Himesh Reshmiya, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Jayachandran, Ramesh Vinayakam and even his daughter Shruti Hassan for one of the films which came in Telugu (“Eenadu”). What I find intriguing is that but for the great Ilaiyaraja and the inimitable MS Vishwanathan, Kamal never really settled with any music composer throughout his career post that phase of MSV-IR. If you take out MSV and Ilaiyaraja’s overarching influence on his films, his sense of sound and music scores that provided such rich variety for the maestro to compose for almost 130 films or more, Kamal remained restless for the last decade hunting for the perfect composer after Raja. He tried AR Rahman twice (“Indian” and “Tenali”), Shankar Ehsan Loy twice, Deva twice, Vidyasagar and Harris Jayaraj once (or twice) but never repeated them afterwards. I read in some of his interviews too that he never liked the approaches of some of the gifted composers like Rahman or Vidyasagar despite getting good output from them. He was the only one who never got carried away by the Oscar-wins and the global adulations greeting Rahman; Rajinikanth on the other hand continues to enlist ARR for taking bigger bites into overseas distribution markets - having Rahman on your side as music composer is a sure-fire passport to box-office success and global appeal. The only person from Tollywood who got calls from Kamal for OST few times has been DSP - but that maybe more than just because DSP is an open admirer of Ilaiyaraja. DSP’s remixing and rerecording  stood out in most of his movies thanks to his energy and relentless handwork. Surprisingly, Mani Sharma - the best RR specialist in Tollywood never got a call from Kamal. Kamal Hassan movies, if one observes, never needed an over-melodious music director like Vidyasagar or Harris Jayaraj to imaging things that were never intended as per  the actor-director's film grammar. You just had to score one or two melody songs and some minimalistic but thoroughly realistic portrayal. But that one song is remembered forever in his films. This was the easy part that most of his music composers missed except Ilaiyaraja - thats how their chemistry endured for film-buffs because it left a rich legacy that will be studied by musicologists and music fans for many decades. 

With Ilaiyaraja, Kamal’s last film was “Mumbai Express” that was in 2005. In ten years, Kamal never worked with the Maestro and fans are waiting when the two will create magic again. Over the last decade, Ilaiyaraja has matured beyond what Kamal Hassan may have expected - Raja worked with almost all the new kids on the block who are directing Tamil films with dangerous themes and vivacious outputs - Bala, Myskin, Balki (in Hindi) ,Gautham Menon and many others who are hailed as the new trailblazers leaving the likes of ManiRatnam and old stalwarts to bite dust. Of course, Mani Ratnam himself never worked with Ilaiyaraja after parting ways bitterly before Rahman burst at the world stage. But that’s another matter. In the last ten years, there was no dearth of new music composers in Tamil and Kamal tried most of them while Ilaiyaraja exerted himself with different genre films ranging from biopics like “Bharati” to “Pandavas” to “Ajanthaa”. I sense somewhere we are about to see the coming together of the original Maestro and the actor extraordinaire in the coming years because the old wine has matured to give us richer, orchestral music and Kamal’s plots are becoming more complicated and multi-dimensional - even if they appear highly contrived. The budgets have also gone up for Ilaiyaraja, I am told, making it easy to assemble a 400 member orchestra from London or Budapest to configure a particular symphony.

With that background, I am relieved that Gibran’s latest composition for UV is spectacular and worthy of the high standards set by Kamal’s films. The original Tamil score has 17 numbers with elaborate interludes, situations and symphonies as if you are listening to a Hollywood musical OST. The Telugu version is cut down to 9 numbers and as expected the audiences on the day of the audio release lapped up the two songs  - “Kaanuke Bondu Malli” and “Lovee Lovee Single KissKe Lovaa” for the outrageous melody and the stretch in the songs. “Kaanuke..” has an extra lilt and a sensuousness that is rarely captured in today’s songs where the male singer and the female singer sing in their own time and the original purpose of duet is lost in remixing. You can hear the O-shouts and murmers of the male singer and the seducing spell of the heroine Puja Kumar in the song very well. Ghibran gave a completely different score in UV compared to the techno-thrills and fast-tempos seen in some of his latest films like “Jil” or “Run Raja Run”. Obviously, Kamal’s kitaab for Gibran both before and during the audio launch settles it that he is the right choice for the film which has a 7th Century theatrical plot intermixed with contemporary settings. I always love the background scores segued with the songs in the audio because it is such a treat for music lovers  - don’t we miss all of that for Ilaiyaraja whose BGMs float on the youtube channel with an ever-swelling following. If only music directors take note of this, they can raise the standards for audio and make the audiences stand up to rich music -of which many are capable of. The last time, a catalogue of this length - which includes songs and instrumental versions of the various scenes - came was for “Mask”(“Mugamoodi” in Tamil). Music by K  -that was from a different planet. And this album “Uthama Villain” belongs to the same class - Ghibran must take a bow. Can’t wait for the movie.

#UthamaVillain #Ghibran #KamalHassan #Ilaiyaraja #ARRahman #Vidyasagar #TamilMusic #TamilMusicComposers #TamilFilmComposers #HarrisJayaraj #Kollywood

"Jil" (Telugu Movie Review)

After an entertaining "Loukyam", Gopichand returns in 2015 with a metrosexual film that casts him in different light - trimmed hair and moustache, toned body and suave looks. Directed by Radha Krishna Kumar, "Jil" is a two line story. First line: Gopichand is a fire-officer in a family who is full of fire-brigade men who falls in love with a girl who he rescues atop a multi-storeyed building. Second line: Gopichand confronts a gang of underworld don when they are chasing down Brahmaji who runs away from the gang with a Rs.1000 crore. His confrontation gains momentum at inteval block. Ideally, the movie should have ended at interval but being Tollywood and FDC rules of above two hours and above, the movie agonisingly drags with slower narration and amateur comedy and love songs between Raashi Khanna and Gopichand.

What mars the film is the violence and the monotony of the villain with a beard shorter than Rabindranath Tagore and a voice that is more powerful than Amrish Puri. We have seen that kind of villain many times before in Tollywood where slaying of men is common and one loses count of the people chopped. The justification for such violence was never clear in the movie. "A" certificate was given because of that I assume. Generally, Gopichand has picked up good subjects with variety but this film produced by the brother of Superstar Prabhas beats imagination and logic. Because the hero is a fire-officer, we see atleast four or five fire accidents in the film, some he saves and some he doesn't. What is ridiculous is that the entire family runs the fire brigade like a Hindu Undivided Family - father, friends and the hero all are on standby for a fire-alarm. I never knew that fire-brigades are run like family businesses and that smoke signals can set the cash registers ringing. 

Let that be, the good part of the film is Gopichand's new looks and his cute romance with Raashi Khanna which lifts the film out of normal college romances. Both exude good screen chemistry and look both dignified and colorful in costumes. Raashi Khanna has urban appeal but can't act beyond a gentle gaze and cherubic face. Gopichand maintains a cool look and an under-stated termper - something we are not used to seeing him. Every Star experiments with versatility but that can only go well when the story is unique or rich. This film doesn't give scope to much of Gopichand's histrionics or loud-mouthed dialogues. The only dialogue that stands out is "I get calls when everybody's on fire. But you called me when I am on fire." Or something to that effect. Stunts despite their elaborateness don't sizzle, and humor is either bland or missing in action. Ghibran's music tries to elevate the film's moods better and the songs sparkle in general with rich picturisation and different sounds. You can't stop Ghibran from enjoying himself with experimentation of music with different scripts - he is on a new high and is flavor of the season. Production values are good - with some songs shot in Spain etc.

On the whole, a pale film with a weak story and low-energy narration.. Good in parts but wait for a better Gopichand film.

Rating : 2/5

#‎Jil #‎MovieReviews #‎Gopichand #‎UVCreations.

"Run Raja Run" (Telugu Film Review)

RRR is a classy and crisp film, perhaps the best Telugu film of 2014 so far and must be a trophy film for all the talents associated with it. Sharwanand, the boy next door who debuted as a drug addict in "Vennela" and later starred as a rocket scientist in "Amma Cheppindi" and lastly as a don in "Prasthanam" has hit bull's eye with a winning script and an affable story - a story that combines the genres of action, romedy and revenge drama in a commercial format that will turn many heads in Tollywood. Sujith, a new director, makes a stylish debut inter-mixing many elements of story-telling borrowed from short films, joke books, novellas of crime fiction and action films. But he makes a grand entree' with story-dialogues-screenplay and directing skills.Two gutsy producers offer this film under the banner of UV creations; they literally bankroll the film to emit production values usually reserved for superstars - so rich is the film that also casts a motley gang of artists oozing out talent - Sampath as a maverick cop, Adivi Sesh as an out-of-box-thinking cop, Jayaprakash as a delectable dad with uncharacteristic affection for son Sharwanand and a petite new starlet Seerat Kapoor with cute demeanor but not beautiful by convention. The director wastes little time in introducing characters and establishing their quirks while moving the story at a frequency that oscillates between two parallel narratives - one is a saga of a kidnapping spree in the city by groups wearing masks of the ruling superstars of Tollywood, the other narrative is the lighter, fun-filled version of a romantic track between Sharwanand and Seerat with a track that has an under-current of police machinations and tensions.

These two stories move in enchanting ways giving us a run a minute in unchartered territory - a breakup with a cute girl, a situational comedy with unsuspecting artists, flashbacks that clarify the motives and the messages and a game of Russian Roulette between the hero , the anti-hero and the heroine that goes right down to the wire. The only thing that distracts is the occasional attempts to humorise a situation when actually tensing the scene might have been better. But you realise the director has a funny bone in presenting the story - he digs out wit, romanticises little and weeds out any scene that smacks of cliched treatment. Because of this thinking, concise and no-lazy-thinking, Sujith infiltrates your viewing experience with images and expressions that can make you watch many times over without fatigue. The movie's content appears fresh and yet larger-than-life  - a combination that even ace directors can match upto. In 138 minutes, Sujith showed us that Telugu Cinema can surprise you, entertain you without making a PG version and wow you.

Technically, the film is brilliant in cinematography - most shots are picture-perfect, show the artists especially Sharwanand in fine fettle, do not strain your eyes with awkward movements and angles and leave a lasting impressions. Great work by Madhie in the visual department. The film's alluring appeal, rests largely on the shoulders of music director Ghibran - familiar to Tamil audiences. Ghibran's sound of music certainly has range, class in arrangement, melody and presentation. Though his music seems inspired by the Western influences, there is huge promise and excitement in his output. All the songs elevate it to a status of hummability - and his repertoire of songs with varying lengths and rhythms must get him new fans in Tollywood. "Bujjimaa... is a rarity that haunts you because of the beats and the timbre in a new singer's voice. Ghibran's background score is  uplifting - it doesn't have orchestral brilliance like that of K or Ilayaraja but enhances the  crux of a sequence. Over-instrumentation can be a temptation but it doesn't jar.  Almost all songs are preceded by the instrumental version of the song precursing it - a technique to burn your music deeper into the audience's minds. Ghibran, dear Tollywood fan, remember this name and you  will fall in love with the music more after watching the film's mesmerising song picturisation. What is different about his music is also that the songs do not always follow a typical format - and use instrumentation that sounds novel. That makes the unpredictability more welcome  - in music as well as in the frames back-ended with the music.

The film makes use of in-film advertising subtly with Naturo foods and studio settings provided by Ramoji Film City and Golconda Fort effectively. Quite a few scenes are shot in Golconda Fort, I wonder how the authorities have allowed even the room where Sriramadasu was imprisoned. The climax has a dramatic twist that must not be missed. For Sharwanand, Adivi Sesh and Sampath this film will be a harbinger of new offers. Sampath is intense and comical at times - sure, it will usher in many roles in comic villainy a'la Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood. Sharwanand is in his element and deserves a pat, he improved his screen presence. Content like this is hard to back up on first instincts, so the entire team has to be patted for an effort like this; it energises the audiences who lap it up, gets the cash registers ringing for the producers and equalises the arena for artists and technicians for a while. Sujith must take a bow for redefining how clean, entertaining films can be made, hope he gets a long haul. That he can write dialogues that pack a punch is a bonus.

My rating: 4/5