Rating: 1.5/5
Banners: KFC Film Productions, SRB Art Productions
Cast: Nandamuri Tarakaratna, Jagapathi Babu, Sheena Shahabadi and others
Music: Parthasarathy
Editing: K V Krishna Reddy
Cinematographer: Sudhakar Reddy
Screenplay, direction: Anji Sreenu
Producers: Kota Gangadhar Reddy, Segu Ramesh Babu
Release date: 15/01/2012
‘Burning’ Star Nandamuri Tarakaratna is back with another attempt to prove that he still has the material in him to score at the box office. He has Jagapathi Babu for support. Let us see if his attempt is successful or not.
Story
Nandu (Tarak) is an aspiring IPS officer and he comes from a large and loving family. However, few incidents lead him to clash with the dreaded goon Baba (Ajay) and this results in Nandu landing in jail and emerging soon as Nandiswarudu.
Meanwhile, the government appoints the tough cop Eshwar Prasad (Jagapathi Babu) to put a check to Nandiswarudu and his parallel system of governance. But public support and his goodwill give him strength. Finally, the battle gets strong between Nandiswarudu and Baba. Who emerges victorious and whether Nandu escapes from the clutches of Eshwar Prasad or not forms the rest of the story.
Performances
Tarakaratna has given a sincere performance. He has improved in dance, body language and screen presence. But he needs to work on his dialogue delivery and reduce the stiffness in front of camera. He should avoid imitating his ‘Babai’s dialogue delivery or mannerisms like big moustaches. Most importantly, he should be careful on the projects and roles he chooses.
Sheena was there for providing the visual relief in songs and ensure the romance quotient is fulfilled. Performance wise, there was nothing for her to do but her sex appeal is satisfactory.
Jagapathi Babu is very good. For some reason, he tends to deliver exceptional performances when he does special roles instead of lead roles. Here again, he was the best among the lot.
Ajay is another talented actor. He has the right kind of menacing looks and personality of a villain. Though his character was not etched to the fullest but he made his presence felt.
Rajeev Kanakala was apt, Suman, Sita, Delhi Rajeswari, Sivaji Raja, Nagineedu, Banerjee were there to fill the gaps. The actors doing Tarak’s friends roles were alright. Rachana Maurya’s item song was some relief to the front benchers.
Highlights
- Background score and songs
- Jagapathi Babu’s performance
- Fights
Drawbacks
- Beaten track storyline
- Stale melodrama
- Dull first half
- Zero comedy
- Poor imitations of few scenes from other films
Analysis
The film is the remake of the Kannada movie ‘Deadly Soma’ and unlike the regular remakes where the script is tweaked to suit the nativity of the local audience, nothing has been done here.
The key reason for the film to suffer is the weak handling of the script by the director. Though he maintained a good pace, he was unable to deliver the emotional impact or come up with scenes that will make the audience connect with the film. It would have been nice had the film was just dubbed and released than remaking it.
Entire film is filled with killings. Hero keeps on killing the antagonists. The narration goes in a very artificial way without any depth in scene conceiving. No one knows why hero’s father gives a bundle of money to his son when the latter is in prison. Father states to his son giving money, “Keep this money with you and use for need”. Had the director confused prison with a hostel? Such headless scenes made audience scratch their heads.
The real fall of graph starts when Tarakarathna gets into the get up of Balakrishna in Simha with a snake like moustache. He tried to imitate Balakrishna but failed to convince the audience.
Actress Sheena is very short beside Tarakarathna. The director and cinematographer failed to cover the gap with basic common sense. Watching this film is like sitting on fire.
Overall, this is a film which suffers primarily due to the director’s weak handling and a subject that is old school. Given the likes of ‘Businessman’ and ‘Bodyguard’ even the B, C centre audience would not show that much interest so success is highly unlikely at the box office.
Bottomline: Old beaten track
(Venkat can be reached at [email protected])
