Thursday, January 14, 2010

NAMO venkatesha..movie review..!!


Cast: Venkatesh, Trisha, Brahmanandam, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Mukesh Rishi, Subbaraju, Dharmavarapu, Ali, Master Bharat and others.
Action: Vijay.
Art: AS Prakash.
Banner: 14 Reels Entertainment.
Cinematography: Prasad Murella.
Dialogues: Chintapalli Ramana.
Editing: MR Verma.
Lyrics: Ramajogaiah Sastry.
Music: Devisri Prasad.
Story: Gopimohan.
Presenter: D. Suresh Babu.
Producer(s): Ram Achanta, Gopinath Achanta, Anil Sunkara.
Director: Sreenu Vaitla.
Release Date: January 14, 2010

Venkatesh and Trisha Two silent men in Telugu cinema start their new year with a bang. Sreenu Vaitla who is on a success spree delivers another entertaining movie. Well both of them use the same formula to churn laughs. The director uses faction plot, romance, and Brahmanandam/Jayaprakash Reddy/Bharat to keep the story moving and garnishes it with plenty of songs.

Venkatesh does try something different at times but his bio-data shows that his run-of-the-mill stories work out better during festive season for whatever reason it may be. Instead of being content doing romance and fights, Venky wears his comedy coat and with Brahmanandam on his side they pull off a lengthy drama that ends predictably.

Venky plays the role of a man who's not married yet as his dream girl hasn't yet arrived. When she does, he is made to believe that she is in love with him and the heroine and her uncle take him for a ride. The heroine is in love with Aakash but like in all films when they are about to get married, the hero attempts a sacrificial act and there is a change of heart in the heroine. To lengthen the drama, and to make it colourful, a faction background is added.

This is not a brilliant or a novel movie but the strength lies in blending the humour into a faction narrative. Also it does not get onto the nerves of the audiences, with a good technical execution, picturesque locations and some sentiment towards the end that all good men are rewarded the film becomes complete.

Trisha this time doesn't get much to do, as Venkatesh and Brahmanandam steal the show. Jayaprakash Reddy's work is as fine as eve. The script and screenplay has a lot of wit and Vaitla's execution too is definitely commendable, as he manages to keep his audiences entertained with a bit of comedy as well as drama.

When there are no words, the situations look funny. Many films fail when there is no adequate romance between the hero and the heroine. Luckily here, there is not much, sometimes it looks absent but the comedy covers up for everything. Venkatesh's flair for humour, average performances by the rest, a fair script, an entertaining screenplay…and yes, the hero's intermittent prayers to Lord Venkatesa makes sure the film is definitely a good watch

sambho siva sambho movie review


Cast: Raviteja, Allari Naresh, Siva Balaji, Suneel, Priyamani, Ahuti Prasad, Sudha, Tanikella Bharani and others.
Banner: Sri Sai Ganesh Productions.
Cinematography: PG Muttaiah.
Music: Sundar C. Babu.
Presenter: Smt. Bellamkonda Padmavathi.
Producer(s): Bellamkonda Suresh, Bellamkonda Sai Srinivas, Bellamkonda Ganesh Babu.
Director: P. Samudrakhani.
Release Date: January 14, 2010

Raviteja and Priyamani The story in a nutshell: Three jobless individuals risk their lives, ruin their careers to help two other jobless individuals/lovers to get hitched. Who, what, why, when, where, how and then what is what the tragically and inappropriately titled Sambho Siva Sambho is about.

Three friends played by Ravi Teja, Naresh and Siva Balaji are jobless, in quest of a government job, a chance to settle abroad and a desire to start a computer business respectively. Some old friend of RT returns, a suicide risk and claiming to be madly in love with a girl who is obviously the daughter of a villain, and hold your breath, a "Rayalaseema Faction Bigwig". The boys2men risk their everything, get the lovers hitched, send them to a fancy resort and suffer. What happens after that, with them and the lovers is the rest of the story.

So there is suffering, both the characters, apparently the actors playing those characters and the audience. So there is a connection, too deep to describe in words. And an acute awareness that this festival has been ruined. But the real tragedy is that the same story could have worked. The biggest minus is the direction, followed by the editing. There is just too much of footage showing the car on the road, irritating songs interjected into already saturated moments. The soundtrack is a direct lift from two of Rehman's compositions, including Slumdog Millionaire.

So where is the respite? There are some scenes, one or two punch lines which work. The theme, the story in one line is actually interesting. It becomes not-so-tolerable when it is stretched to 3 hours. Which feels like you spent one full day in a dark room with the door closed. The hall is resounding with the loudness of the admittedly diverse characters-from RT to Suneel, the entire movie, there are people screaming, women weeping and sobbing, parents protesting; the movie is really, really Tamil-movie loud.

Except that the stark reality and rawness of a Premiste or even a more polished and suburban 7/G Brindavan Colony is not captured, and SSS is hanging somewhere between, never quite taking off from where it started. A lot of editing, avoiding unnecessary forced 'comic relief' (which feels like the writers wrote the screenplay and wrote Inset Comic Scene and wrote that scene on the set with old friends sniggering about it) and taming the noise would have made the movie a little watchable.

The music is not good enough to be a strong point. The soundtrack does not enhance the already badly paced movie.

If you feel like dunking your head into a bucket full of ice-cold water, it's not you, it's the movie. Don't worry, therapy helps. The doctor beckons. End of review