Film: Hare Ram
Rating: 3/5
Banner: Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Arts
Cast: Kalyan Ram, Priya Mani, Sindhu Thulani, Kota, Raghu Babu, Laxmipathi, Brahmanandam, Ali, Venu Madhav, Apoorva etc
Music: Micky J Mayor
Dialogues: Swamiji-Vijay
Story: Gowri Shankar
Art: Vivek
Editing: Gowtham Raju
Cinematography: C Ram Prasad
Stunts: Ram-Laxman, Selva
Director: Harsha Vardhan
Producer: Nandamuri Kalyan Ram
Release Date: 18 July 2008
This is Kalyan Ram's second movie on his home banner. His efforts are seen in big way. He tried to showcase his acting prowess as spilt personality. Let us see how he carried his idea on celluloid.
Story:
The film is about an IPS officer Hari (Kalyanram) who is busy investigating the murders of a news reporter (Prabhakar) and then a well known doctor (Rajeev Kanakala) and then discovers that these are the murders done by his conjugal twin Ram (Kalyanram).
The story goes that Ram has a problem with his brain and is unable to control his hyper emotions about few things which makes him a beast at times. He would not even hesitate to kill and does not like anyone being praised or belittling him. In this process, he builds a grudge against his own brother who is good at everything and tries to kill him right during their childhood. Their mother (Seetha) is unable to tolerate all this and takes it upon herself to change Ram, so she takes him away from Hari to avoid further hatred but then not much change happens in the nature of Ram even after they grow up. Meanwhile, Hari is often chased by Anjali (Priyamani) who poses as a bank employee but in truth she is actually a CBI officer who comes to arrest Hari since she suspects his hand in the killings of a news reporter (Prabhakar) and a well known doctor (Rajeev Kanakala). Apparently, the doctor happens to be the younger brother of the health minister Siva Reddy (Kota) and from then on the minister is closely on the heels of the killer. Anjali finally manages to arrest Hari successfully through a plan of hers and soon she realizes her folly when she chances upon his mother and understands the entire story of Hari and Ram.
Why does Ram commit the two murders? Does he change his attitude towards his brother? Can Ram get out of the case smoothly? All this forms the rest of the story.
Performance:
Kalyanram has put his heart and soul to come up with a good performance and though he was nice in most of the scenes, he failed out during the intense scenes which required good depiction of emotions and expressions, his dialogue delivery is ok. He portrayed good histrionics in the role of Ram.
Priyamani worked well on screen as a 'Glamour girl'.
Kota was the apt choice for the corrupt politician but there was not much gravity to his role.
Seetha did her role effectively as the unlucky mother, the comedy track was an utter disappointment and despite the presence of highly experienced and entertaining actors like Brahmanandam, Ali, Raghu Babu and Venu Madhav, nothing happened to the funny bones.
Ashok Kumar was hysterical which was annoying.
The others were okay with their performances but could not contribute much to the film.
The director has shown his amateur approach and though the idea was clear in his mind, he messed up narration with some shoddy screenplay and sour dialogues. The saving grace of the film is some good background score and worthy songs along with top notch camerawork and well executed stunt scenes though the fight sequences were quite savage. Costumes were good on the lead pair and editing was alright.
Censor Act:
One does not understand what was the need of muting surnames like 'Reddy' and words like 'Maoists' and there were quite a few loopholes in few scenes which will take ages to debate. Why censor board is keen on those elements is not known. And kicking on groins and squeezing the penis region in fights are not censored. The board left those scenes and gave 'A' certificate-justified that way may be.
Analysis:
Before making the film, the makers should have been clear of the genre, whether they wanted action, suspense or thriller to lead it. A hotchpotch of all these three elements ended up in making a disaster of what could have been a very interesting movie with sufficient doses of technical effects and thrills. It would have made in a genre of 'Anasuya' had they wanted to make a psychological thriller. Or they would have worked on comedy track in better way to make it a mass entertainer.
First half tests the patience with no proper comedy and interval twist is a big bang. But nothing is promising in second half and only confusion prevails for sometime. And the last 15 minutes show is captivating with high value stunts and fly cam work.
Technically, the film has been well made and as a hero Kalyanram did whatever he could but poor dialogue quality, content and screenplay might take a toll to some extent. If the makers had worked on the comedy sequences correctly and included a high adrenaline action sequence during the first half like they did during the climax, it would have safely made its journey towards the success mark. But now, things may not work out as per expectations. On a whole, Kalyan Ram should be appreciated for making this subject with the motive of showing something different.
(SiraSri can be reached at [email protected])
