Movie: Subramanyam For Sale
Rating: 2.75/5
Banner: Sri Venkateshwara Creations
Cast: Sai Dharam Tej, Regina, Adah Sharma, Kota Srinivasa Rao,Naga Babu, Suman, Ajay, Rao Ramesh Brahmanandam, Pragati, Surekha Vani, Pradeep Shakti, Saleem Pheku and others
Music: Mickey J Meyer
Cinematography: C Ram Prasad
Editor: Goutham Raju
Action: Ram- Laxman, Venkat
Art direction: Ramakrishna
Co-Producers: Sirish, Lakshman
Presented by: Smt.Anitha
Produced by: Dil Raju
Story, dialogues and Direction: Harish Shankar S
Release Date: September 24, 2015
Harish Shankar, a director with his own distinct style in making mass entertainers, has blockbusters like “Gabbar Singh” to his credit. After directing top heroes like Ravi Teja, Pawan Kalyan and NTR, he has teamed up with an upcoming star Sai Dharam Tej with “Subramanyam For Sale” to get back on the path of the success. Will he able to deliver this movie? Let’s find out…
Story:
The story starts off in Kurnool where Sita (Regina Cassandra) runs away from a marriage that she does not want. And off she goes to the US to marry her Facebook boyfriend. Like in all films, the FB boyfriend turns out to be a fraud and she ends up acting as the wife of Subramanyam (Sai Dharam Teja), thanks to a ‘Best Couple’ competition held by NRI Rajasekhar (Naga Babu). Well, after that both of them return to India for their respective sisters’ marriage. What happens next forms the rest of the story.
Artistes’ Performances:
This is Sai Dharam Teja’s third film and he shows that he is growing with each film. He dances well as always and he puts in a decent performance.
Regina Cassandra too toned down her performance from the past and she too puts in performance in keeping with her role.
Adah Sharma is wasted once again.
Tejaswini once again gets an inconsequential role as does Suman, who is totally wasted. Rao Ramesh too fails to get an author-backed role, but he manages to pull off his part.
Brahmanandam gets to play Chintakay and the comedy king is as best as ever, though director Harish Shankar hasn’t given him a big role.
Technical Excellence:
Ram Prasad has once again shown his technical strength with his camera work, USA sequences are shot very richly. Editing is not perfect, length should be trimmed. Art work by Ramakrishna okay. ‘Panchuleyyadam kadu Pani Cheyyadam’, “Tallini Kshamniche Galigentha Koduku inka Puttaledu”, dialogues written by Harish Shankar get noticed. Mickey’s songs are not that impactful except for the title song.
Highlights:
- Sai Dharam Teja’s dances
Drawbacks:
- Routine story
- Lack of novelty
- Excess length
- Mix of many movies
Analysis:
The failure of Ramayya Vastavayya has brought down the popularity of Harish Shankar, hence he has made this movie to showcase his strengths as writer and director.
Harish has used a regular formula that has been applied in many movies like Brundavanam, Bavagaru Bagunnara and Donga Mogudu.
Scenes from several other movies are also rehashed. Much of the first half of the movie goes on pretty routine formulae.
Second half is laced with comedy scenes and some story element. This is where Harish Shankar has succeeded compared to his earlier Ramayya Vasatavayya.
But the movie has its share of many minuses like uneven narration, missing many logic points in the episodes set in the USA.
Sai Dharam Tej is hardly shown working other than mostly involving with Regina despite establishing that he works only for the sake of amassing dollars.
There is also his track with his aunt Jhansi and it is unconvincing. Adah Sharma’s whole track seems to have put there to add some more twist than anything else.
Having said that, Harish Shankar is clear in his goal – to make Subramanyam For Sale a mass entertainer that will be enjoyed by mega fans.
Right from the beginning, Sai Dharam Teja has mimicked either Chiranjeevi or Pawan Kalyan throughout the movie in an obvious attempt to satisfy the mega fans. So there is less creativity, more mass elements.
All in all, entertainment in the second half coupled with some good dance steps by Sai Dharam Tej, Subramanyam For Sale makes for one time watch for fans and for others it is quite routine fare.
Bottomline: Subramanyam Plays It Safe
(Venkat can be reached [email protected] or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)
