Film: Ullasamga Utsahamga
Rating: 2.75/5
Banner: Amrut Amarnath Arts
Cast: Yasho Sagar, Sneha Ullal, Chandra Mohan, LB Sri Ram, Ashok Kumar, Kavita, Sunil, Venu Madhav, Brahmandandam, Suman Shetty etc
Dialogues: Chintapalli Ramana
Lyrics: Anant Sri Ram
PRO: Lakshmi Venu Gopal
Choreography: Kalyan
Fights: Vijay
Art: Chinna
Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh
Camera: Andrew
Producer: Somu, Ranganath
Story, Screenplay, Direction: Karunakaran
Release Date: 25th July 2008
It's like 'Toliprema' retold in less effective way to say in single line. The love track between a decent heroine and a go-easy guy is dealt in Karunakaran's style here.
Story
A light hearted romance, the film begins with the story of a boy Balaji and a girl Dhanalakshmi (Sneha) who grow up as kids and Balaji is ready to do anything and everything to see a smile on Dhana's face. Soon, the kids grow but then Balaji leaves as his father gets transferred. However, Dhana is unable to forget him and despite the passing of 15 years she still longs for him since she gets letters from Balaji and though Dhana's aunt (Kavitha) who is eyeing her property does not like it, her feelings for him is strong which makes her run away from home and reach the city. In comes Aravind (Yasho Sagar) a cheerful, fun loving happy go lucky who is not much into responsibilities and a carefree kind of guy. He meets Dhana accidentally and falls in love with her at first sight and despite her not liking his company, he keeps chasing her all the time. But Dhana reveals that she loves Balaji. What happens then has to be watched on screen.
Performance
Yasho Sagar by no means was able to deliver a quality performance. He lacked strength in expressions and went blank in emotional scenes; to add to the woes was his frequent guffaw which was more of an annoyance than anything. It will take some real good grilling for him if he is looking at becoming a hero.
Sneha Ullal was a true vision of natural beauty and she did resemble Aishwarya Rai in few frames, though her acting needed a bit of touch-up here and there, she has enough attraction and charm in her to take things forward and two or more films down the line she will strike it big.
The comedy scenes involving Venumadhav imitating Rajini, Sunil, Brahmanandam managed to extract few laughs and it was the sequences with Suman Shetty and gang that scored better in the comedy department. The senior cast of Chandramohan, Sudha, Kavitha, L B Sriram carried out their roles with required standard. Sudha appeared to have suffering from some dental problem. She delivered some dialogues with a hissing sound in first half.
Sunil is one bundle of talent who could have been used in a much effective way. Dharmavarapu came and went with extracting three smiles in total. The director has come out with a thin plot and it appears that few bits have been inspired from movies like 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' 'Namastey London' where the hero is all out to make his loved one happy at the expense of his sadness. However, the touches of 'Tholi Prema' were seen strongly. The presentation was nice but the narration lost out on points, editing was crisp, music was top notch, camera was superb but the script was weak and lacked depth on the lead pair.
Analysis
The structure of the narration resembles 'Toli Prema'-a careless hero with an irresponsible friends-gang falls in love with a decent girl who holds a goal. While the heroine in Toliprema holds the goal to go Harvard School for research, here in this film the goal of heroine is to meet her childhood boy friend. In the process heroine knows the sensitive feelings in the heart of hero and unites with him in the climax. Yes, that's purely the story of Toliprema. The difference is that the director tried to narrate it in different way, choosing a lighter tone. On a whole it can be stated that either the emotional depth or the complete lighter swing aren't seen on screen. And above all, Karunakaran made a mistake by bringing Yasho Sagar on to floors without giving him proper training in acting. The film runs on the shoulders of hero. And here hero proved amateur and failed in delivering many expressions. He is not an actor yet. He has to get trained a lot.
First half and second half run in similar tone with a mixture of lighter moments and serious heart-factors.
The plus point in the film is heroine. She has bright future on Tollywood screen if she improves her acting skills and chooses right subjects and appropriate roles. She is looking as a mixture of Aishwarya Rai and Renu Desai.
The film-wise it's good. And presentation is fair. But the choice of main lead spoiled the show.
(SiraSri can be reached at [email protected])
