Film: Naayak
Rating: 3.25/5
Banner: Universal Media
Cast: Ram Charan, Kajal, Amala Paul, Pradeep Rawat, Brahmanandam, Ashish Vidyarthi, M S Narayana, Jayaprakash Reddy and others
Music: Thaman
Cinematographer: Chota K Naidu
Story: Akula Shiva
Director: V V Vinayak
Producer: D V V Danayya
Release date: 09/01/2013
Ram Charan who scored a hit with his ‘Racha’ has teamed up with director V V Vinayak who is desperately seeking a hit. Whether Vinayak was successful in his attempt or not let us see.
Story
Cherry (Charan) is a street-smart youngster who has a happy go life. Due to an incident of his uncle Jalebi (Brahmi) he comes across Madhu (Kajal) and falls in love with her. Madhu is the sister of a notorious rowdy (Rahul Dev) and trouble happens. Meanwhile, a series of killings keep happening and some of the society’s bigshots including the DGP are killed and minister Rawat (Pradeep Rawat) survives an attempt. A CBI officer (Ashish Vidyarthi) starts his investigation and determines that it is Cherry who is doing all the killings. But there is something else that the CBI officer, Cherry, Rawat and others don’t know. What is that and how things take shape forms the rest of the story.
Performances
Ram Charan gave a rather subdued performance and despite having good scope for showing his act with variety he didn’t give his full. But then, he was very good in dance and fight departments.
Kajal Agarwal has upped her oomph factor and she is looking delicious. Not much for her in terms of role or performance but she fulfilled the glamour requirement. All that she appeared was just in 2 and half songs and few scenes.
Amala Paul is seen in the second half and her expressive eyes and photogenic face says it all. Even she didn’t have anything to contribute in terms of role or performance.
The real stars for the film are Jayaprakash Reddy and Posani Krishnamurali. M S Narayana, Brahmi, Raghubabu and Fish Venkat are not fully utilized. But on a whole, all their tracks have come out extremely well and they provided the much needed humour and entertainment.
Among them, it was Jayaprakash Reddy who was hilarious to the core. Pradeep Rawat did his bit as required. Ashish Vidyarthi was apt. Rahul Dev was a surprise. Charmee was voluptuous with her oomph in the special song. Surekha Vani, Rajeev Kanakala, Dev Gill and others filled the screen with apt performances.
Highlights
- Second half
- Comedy
- CG work in songs
Drawbacks
- Artificial Action Scenes
- Routine storyline
- No punch dialogues
Analysis
From the moment the film hit the floors, everyone was proclaiming it to be a perfect blockbuster project and most of them were confident because they were sure of the star power of Ram Charan. His earlier film ‘Racha’ was a classic example for that. Given his roles, the expectations were also high because the scope for showing diversity was ample. But let’s talk facts.
The primary reason why the film has worked was not because of Charan’s stamina, it was due to the padding artists. The comedy tracks and the performance of the senior artists was the match winner.
It looks evident that more than coming up with a high adrenalin, emotionally intense characterization, Charan was mixed into the stream with a group of highly talented artists whose comedy timing was outstanding. As a director, Vinayak used the mega factor to the fullest and employed them wherever possible.
Of course, Charan has a strong screen presence which is hard to miss and that is the initial crowd puller. But the real boost came from those around him. The film opens on a slightly indifferent note and it takes a while for it to settle. But after that it got into some rhythm. The interval bang was decent.
It was the second half which picked the real momentum and Vinayak was sensible enough to mix the script with good entertainment and the required action sequences.
Content wise, there is nothing great but speaking of cinematic formula or the expectation of Charan fans, all ingredients have been provided.
If only the songs had some material, the film would have been a blockbuster but even now it would cross the profits zones with ease at the box office.
Bottomline: Pakka mass masala entertainer
(Venkat can be reached at [email protected] or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)
