Film: Second Hand
Rating: 2.5/5
Banner: Sri Sreeyas Chitra
Cast: Sudheer Varma, Kireeti, Sri Vishnu, Dhanya Balakrishnan, Posani, Kishore Tirumala, Anuj Ram and others
Music: Ravi Chandra
Cinematographer: Avaneendra
Editor: Sekhar
Director: Kishore Tirumala
Producers: BVS Ravi, Poorna Naidu
Release date: 13/12/2013
New wave of filmmakers with new concepts is entering Tollywood. BVS Ravi who failed as a director and in few instances as a writer is making his debut as a producer with this. Let us see if he gets through this time.
Story
Santosh (Sudheer) is on the verge of committing suicide because his girlfriend Deepu (Dhanya) dumps him and marries someone else. At that time comes Subbarao (Kireeti) who shares his woeful story. He gets married to a girl (Dhanya) but she has a boyfriend whom she doesn’t forget so his life becomes a mess. While they are sharing their tales, another girl Sahasra (Dhanya again) enters with her story. She shares about how Chaitu (Sri Vishnu) makes her pregnant and takes it easy. How each of their lives end up forms the rest of the story.
Performances
Sri Vishnu has got a mass face and his body language and expressions are impressively rugged. His confidence and assertiveness made the difference in this role.
Sudheer Varma is a natural performer and he is versatile with his expressions. He doesn’t have a macho appeal but he would work well for youthful roles.
Kireeti appeals with his poker face and balanced dialogue delivery. He again has good potential to become a side hero or play significant comedy roles.
Dhanya Balakrishnan does all the magic with her eyes. Though her performance needs to be fine-tuned in terms of few emotions, she has done a decent job and looks promising.
Kishore Tirumala was hilarious, Posani was appealing. The others did their bit as required.
Highlights
- First half
- Storyline
- Shot composition
Drawbacks
- Second half
- Weak cinematography
- No thumping music
Analysis
A new wave of filmmakers and talented directors are foraying into Tollywood and even the small budget flick segment is also increasing. Quite often the focus is on entertainment which banks on star comedians, punch dialogues, spoofs etc but it has never run on the subject and plot. It is here that the film scores.
Developing a lighter vein for some crucial incidents in life requires skill and to an extent the director has achieved it. At the same time, he was careful not to spend too much money.
The fact that he used the same girl for three different roles goes to show how stingy the producers were. Same goes with the locations or other departments. In a way, this can be called as an adopted formula of Malayalam flicks where everything revolves around the characters of the film and the story, nothing beyond that.
All this can also be tagged as a new trend which is emerging in this industry which is known for grandeur and heavy budget projects. However, there are also loopholes. For instance, the film takes a one-sided approach on girls and shows them in a rather confused or negative way so there is no doubt that female audience will not connect to this subject.
The film takes off on the right note and it has the right ingredients to get the audience’s attention due to the humor, romance and typical situations that stir the feelings of youth. Even the interval bang was interesting. All this laced with a good touch of humor made the audiences look forward to the second half. But things take a dip from here on. There is a major slow down in the pace of events. The entertainment quotient dropped heavily and the tone of the film gets serious and melodramatic.
In totality the film is ok but weak cinematography and lack of energy in an entire half hampers the momentum. Even the music should have added weight. Also, many references were made to maestro Ilaiyaraaja and his songs, that will appeal for 30 plus audience and not for today’s generation.
Above all, though the film has the potential, unless the producers open their pockets and shell out some dough for post release promotion aggressively the film will not give the desired result. The film per se is good and entertaining but what is the use if it is not taken to the people.
Bottomline: Second half dips
(Venkat can be reached at [email protected] or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)
