Movie: Gautham Nanda
Rating: 2/5
Banner: Sri Balaji Cine Media
Cast: Gopichand, Hansika Motwani, Catherine Tresa, Nikithin Dheer, Chandra Mohan, Mukesh Rishi, Sachin Khedekar, Seetha, Tanikella Bharani and others
Music: S S Thaman
Camera: S Soundar Rajan
Editing: Goutham Raju
Fights: Ram Lakshman
Art Director: Brahma Kadali
Producers: J Bhagawan, J Pulla Rao
Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Direction: Sampath Nandi
Release date: July 28, 2017
Although Gopichand has been delivering flops lately, he teaming up with hit director Sampath Nandi generated a lot of interest.
The lavish visuals in the trailer of "Gautham Nanda" further evoked expectations. Let's find out its merits and demerits.
Story:
Gautham Ghattamaneni (Gopichand) is the heir of a business tycoon. He realizes that he has no identity of his own.
An incident makes him find his own identity when he hits his car to a person and the guy turns out to be Nanda Kishore (Gopichand) who looks exactly like him. They decide to trade places.
Nanda Kishore who is poor and has no job lands in the palatial building of Gautham and Gautham moves to Nanda Kishore's poor family staying in a slum area.
After a few days, Gautham realises that someone is trying to kill him? Who are they? And why they are doing it?
Artistes’ Performances:
This is the first time that Gopichand has played a dual role and he has shown variation in both the characters. He is at his best in the role of Gautham Nanda, the billionaire guy. Hansika is seen as plain Jane.
Catherine is good as rich girl and is very glamorous (also appears in a bikini). Chandra Mohan as father has given believable performance among all the actors. Mukesh Rishi, Nikithin Dheer, Sachin Khedkar and Vennela Kishore... all have come up with routine acting.
Technical Excellence:
The one thing that impresses about the movie are the rich production values and locations. The artwork and Soundar Rajan's cinematography have made the film look bright.
Thaman's songs are catchy. Editing is not impressive. Some dialogues are good but the screenplay and the comedy part are too cliched.
Highlights:
Last 20 minutes
Lavish Production values
Drawback:
Old story
Cliched narration
No entertainment
Uneven screenplay
Analysis:
The plotline of two similar looking guys exchanging their respective places is familiar to everyone. Several films were made in the past with this line.
Director Sampath Nandi has made a small difference to this line by making one of the guys a baddie. He must have thought that this small touch to such an old story is enough to entice today's audiences. But that turns out to be a huge mistake.
A hero playing dual role and one of the them turning villain in the end is also not novel. It was already explored in many movies. So, where is the newness here? And the scenes and situations are also cliched.
Sample these: when the slum guy enters into the shoes of rich guy, all he does is eat, enjoy in the bathroom and experience sleeping on the king-sized bed. When the rich guy enters the house of the poor guy, all we get to see is mosquitoes, bad roads, house flies landing on utensils, and slum dwellers fighting at water tankers.
Such hackneyed scenes are displayed in full dose throughout the movie. Old stories can only work when they are packaged with fresh situations and told in interesting and entertaining manner. Here the comedy is horribly bad. Even the presence of the so-called TV star 'bittiri Satthi' has not generated laughs.
With cliched stories, Sampath Nandi at least entertained the audiences in "Emaindi Ee Vela", "Rachcha" and "Bengal Tiger", but here he has totally failed. His story and narration have run past the expiry date. He shines only in the department of dialogues and that too in some parts.
The film impresses with lavish production values and last two minutes when the twist in the tale is revealed. Also Catherine Tresa impresses the eyes with her bikini show for a minute. Rest of the movie is completely outdated.
All in all, "Gautham Nanda" falls in the category of "old wine in old bottle" with little redeeming elements. The film may have chances of finding audiences in B and C centers, but for regular multiplex audiences, it might not work.
Bottom-line: Old Wine, Old Bottle
