MOVIE REVIEWS

RAACHA
Racha Telugu Movie Review, Racha Movie Review, Racha Review, Racha Rating Mega Power Star Ram Charan Tej, Milky White Tamanna Starrer “Racha” is releasing today with highest number of prints. Ram Charan’s Racha is directed by Sampath Nandi and jointly produced by Paras Jain and N.V.Prasad. After two continuous successes Charan missed the Hat trick with Orange. Now he is back with mass entertainer loaded with mass dialogues and his breathless stunts and dancing movements along with Tamanna's glamour quotient. Let’s check out Racha Review!
Cast:     Ram Charan, Tamanna Bhatia, Ajmal Ameer
Director:    Sampath Nandi
Producer:     NV Prasad, Paras Jain
Written by:     Paruchuri Brothers
Music:     Mani Sharma
Cinematography:     Sameer Reddy
Editing:     Goutham Raju
Banner:     Mega Supergood Films
Release date:     April 5, 2012

Story:

Ram Charan (Raj) does his living on betting with a motto “Aadmi kam, risk jyadha” and lives with his Step Parents. Tamanna is (Chaitra) Daughter of Ballary (Mukesh Rushi) who is big hooligan and he keeps 24-hour security on her at the college so that nobody eyes his daughter. On the other side James (Ajmal Ameer) a betting lover fails in a bet with Raj and tries to beat him in life with another bet. One day playing cricket with colony people, he comes across big problem. Taking it a chance James comes out with a deal that could actually solve his problem. Will Raj accept the Bet? How will Chaitra come across Raj? Will Raj Solve the Problem? Forms the rest of the story

Analysis:

The Story runs on the steady commercial sequence of fights, romance and songs.  Thagubothu Ramesh, Bhramanandam provided some entertaining comedy. In this situation if you start inquisitive about the storyline coming and where it might lead you, it is highly uninformed. But since all the events won’t come at the same time you start predicting in midst of racy mass script. Director Sampath Nandi has nothing new to offer except predictable things. Distinctly he has compromised with adding of thrills and Comedy sequences since he had Mega Power in hand. Tamanna is not utilized properly and her character was not nourished well. 

First half is entertaining with decent blend of entertainment and emotion. The tempo goes down a bit in second half because of conventional narration and predictability in the story, but gets back strong with perfect pace at the pre climax episode and ends well. First half is entertaining and second half is heavy with action drama.

Teluguone perspective:

Though Racha is not so excellent with the substance, but the performance by Ram Charan improved a lot. He wired loads of energy into his character. He maintained perfect comedy timing and showed a lot of ease in his histrionics. Ram Charan took the whole movie on his shoulders. Although a good deal of story and narration lacked in the script. 

The kind of theme movie opted is utilized in most of the Telugu movies and its very routine. Like hero accepting love, making heroine falling in love later, the whole concept changes and hero falls in love with heroine.  Director failed to balance the sequences of comedy and action in both the halves. Except the pre interval and pre climax nothing tries to elevate the script. From the post interval the movie goes on predictable note and makes movie hardly exciting till the pre climax episode.

Performances:

Ram Charan showed some wonderful variety in histrionics, He has given an effortless performance in romantic and comedy episodes. His scenes where he tried to flirt with Tamanna and Climax Mass episodes were exemplary. His dances in Singareni Undhi and Oka Paadam were good.  Tamanna Bhatia is very good in her role. She adds colors to the flick with her glamour quotient. Ajmal Ameer provided some potential performance after his successful Rangam. Anuhya Reddy and Ali are adequate and provided Entertaining things.  Lisa Haydon is surely a nice find and provided a sizzling performance in title number. Bhramanandam entertains throughout the flick as Rangeela. Mukesh Rushi and Kota Srinivas Rao provided decent performances. Dev Gill is adequate. Parchuri Venkateshwarulu provided a skillful performance.

Technicalities:


Dialogues by Parchuri Brothers are adequate though dialogues written for emotional scenes are way too lengthy. Climax dialogues were effective. Music scored by Mani Sharma is mediocre. The placement of couple of songs should have been taken care off. Fights are a bit unnatural. Cinematography by Sameer Reddy is one of the major assets of the flick. Editing of the film is could have been better. Production values are excellent.

Final Word: Racha is a potpourri and Mega Fans will be fully satisfied.

Rating 3.25/5



SMS

smsShiva (Sudhir Babu) works as a courier boy and is of mass type. Shruti (Regina) works as RJ in Radio Mirchi. They meet in a train journey and their relationship starts off on a false note. They get to meet each other at regular intervals and start having love and hate relationship. Shruti keeps misunderstand Shiva. By the time Shiva clarifies one misunderstanding, another one is generated. The rest of the story is all about how Shruti and Shiva clear it all for ever.
Artists Performance
smsSudheer Babu: Sudheer Babu makes a confident and fine debut with SMS movie. He doesn’t look like a first-timer. He is an excellent dancer and gracefully moves his body to difficult dance movements. He is athletic and is very good with action sequences. He excels both in casual scenes and emotional scenes. However, he need to improve his voice modulation while doing comical stuff as there is a squeakiness in it.
smsOthers: Regina impresses you with her effortless acting. The girl who dubbed her voice also brings freshness. The second hero of the movie is ‘Chanti’ who entertained us in Tatineni Satya’s earlier film ‘Bheemili’. Chanti has extremely likable dialogue delivery and expressions. He is as good as Ali in comedy timing. The dialogues written to his also helped the cause. Vennela Kishore entertains in a low-key character. Subbaraju is superb in a 2-minute cameo. Thagubothu Ramesh entertains again in one more climax. Roshini is apt as hero’s mother. Kasi Viswanath played the role of heroine’s father. Mirchi Hemanth makes his mark in climax.
Technical departments
smsStory - screenplay - direction: The story of the movie is a simple one-liner. The story has a single thread of misunderstanding between the lead pair. Director Tatineni Satya made sure that there is ample perfectly timed entertainment in the movie. He is very good at extracting performances and doing entertainment scenes. However, the screenplay should have been better as some of the vital episodes (birthday misunderstanding before interval, drinking scene in wine compound and hero going to heroine office after drinking) were not convincing enough to create misunderstanding.
smsOther departments: Music by Selva Ganesh is good. I liked ‘Idi Nijame’ and ‘Cheliya’ personally both on-screen and off-screen. Cheeky Cheeky Baby song is fast and fun. Osey Penki Pilla’s picturization is very creative. Photography by Chittibabu is nice. Dialogues of Nandyala Ravi are an asset. There are entertaining dialogues and emotional ones as well. Films of this type will work only when the director make the comedy work and when the hero adds value to his character. It’s a risky decision to invest on such a script with new hero and one-film director. The producer Vikram Raju has shown a lot of confidence on both hero and director and it is likely to payoff.
smsAnalysis: First half of the movie is entertaining. Second half is okay, but it’s lengthy and redundant due to single orientation. However, the climax of the film is good though extended one. The plus points of the movie are actors performance and entertainment. On the flip side, a better screenplay in the second half would have made a lot of difference. SMS - a film with youth orientation and entertainment makes a decent watch.

LOVE FAILURE
Story

love failureArun (Siddharth) falls in love with his college-mate Parvathi (Amala Paul). Parvathi’s parents are on the verge of divorce and she confides her problems with Arun. Arun looks at the world in certain way and Parvathi keeps expecting more time and attention from Arun. And finally they break their relationship. The rest of the movie is all about how they realise that one need not be perfect and the couple ‘adjust’ themselves to become a ‘made for each-other’ pair.
Artists Performance
love failureSiddharth: Siddharth looks young and is apt for the role of college going Arun character. Siddharth’s work in this film is probably his best so far. The expressions are minute, yet perfect. Looks like his real life love failures must have taught him a lot and it all shows up in portrayal of this character. You can find fault with Siddharth in some of the scenes in films released post-Bommarillu. But his work (expressions, dialogue delivery and body language) in ‘Love Failure’ is impeccable. Director should also get the credit for such an authentic yet lovable characterization. Love Failure is a conversations-based film. Hence it’s extremely important for the narrator and male lead (both played Siddhath in this film) to get dialogues right. Siddharth does an outstanding job in dialogue delivery.
love failureOthers: Amala Paul is a good actress and she has come up with nice work. Suresh gets a nice character after a long gap and he impresses. Surekha Vani is decent as wife of Suresh. 90% of the actors are new and all of them are natural with their work. The casting of new actors added loads of freshness to the movie.
Technical departments
love failureStory - screenplay - direction: It is a simple story. Balaji Mohan has narrated it in a beautiful way by designing good characterizations, writing interesting screenplay and narrating it in a novel way. You can see heavy influence of Woody Allen’s work (especially hero speaking to the camera and creative screenplay (like the scene in which heroine gives the flower - then hero goes into dream before heroine takes it back and keep it in the book)). Director is intelligent and creative. There is subtlety in his work. There are certain scenes in the film for which you smile after a couple of seconds (it takes time to get that humor understood). There is neither formula not familiar commercial elements in the film. Balaji sticks to the plot and delivers the goods. There are several interesting scenes in the movie. Here I am giving a couple of them
1. The girl coughing in a scene where another girl explains about her cheating boy friend.
2. Director showing a heavy water fall comparing it with the tears of girls who used it as a secret weapon to win over an argument.
3. The Coffee shop scene where girl will be thinking about interiors etc and boy’s mind is blank (randaka background song) at the same time.
love failureOther departments: One of the main strengths of the film is writing. The dialogues are sharp and quirky. Lyrics are fun. Thaman comes up with refreshing songs and a soothing background music. Cinematography by Nirav Shah is of top notch quality. The colors are natural and you wouldn’t believe that it is shot with a digital camera. Editing is crisp. Production values complement the story.
love failureAnalysis: Love Failure is an urban romantic comedy told in a fresh an novel style. Siddharth has picked up the director by looking at a short film in youtube and asked him to make it a full-length feature film. I had seen that short film and the feature film is even better than the short film. Not even a single frame in this movie is compromised to please a section of audiences. The director has stuck to plot and to his narration style. The director has excellent understanding of how men and women think/react in contrastingly different ways for the same situation. On a whole, Love Failure is a well-made urban romantic comedy. Go and watch it!
New business formula: My sources tell me that this film is made in a very small budget because hero Siddharth and cinematographer Nirav Shav were not paid (to be shared from profits). The budget of the movie is recovered by satellite rights. The amount collected in theatrical run is the profit. A few Telugu filmmakers tried it in the past and failed, because they have concentrated more on economics and ignored the content. Love Failure is a fine example of economical film-making with good content.


ISHQ
Story

ishqRahul (Nitin) falls in love with Priya (Nitya) at the first sight. Both of them alight a flight at Delhi to Hyderabad, but is diverted to Goa due to bad weather. They fall in love with each other in Goa. Rahul realises an important thing when they finally land in Hyderabad. The rest of the story is all about how Rahul solves the problem and weds Priya.
Artists Performance
ishqNitin looks completely different in this movie. He is matured as an actor. He tried to be himself and completely justified his character. He has succeeded in getting the minute nuances work with his performance. Nitya Menon continued it from where she left in Ala Modalaindi. She is cute and natural. Ajay steals it from everybody whenever he gets a meaty role. In this film too, he made sure that he adds value. Ali is entertaining in a cameo. Nagineedu is good in a vital role. Sindhu Tolani, Satya Krishnan, Supreet and Ravi Prakash are adequate.
Technical departments
ishqStory - screenplay - direction: Director Vikram pens an interesting story with a ‘brother’ conflict point. He handles the screenplay well and joins all the dots at regular intervals. He handled lots of scenes in first half with dexerity. The characterization done to Nitin and Nitya in the first half is unique and lovable. However, Vikram couldn’t handle the second half the same way. The character of Ajay appears confusing as it vaccilates between being a passionate family man and phychotic revenge seeker.
ishqOther departments: Cinematography by PC Sreeram stands out in this movie. Visually the film is very rich. Songs scored by Anoop Rubens and Aravind Shankar are excellent (with Kodi Baye song being the highlight). Background music by Anoop is excellent. Dialogues by Ramesh Samala are apt. All songs are pictutized in an excellent manner. The stunt sequences are well choreographed. Art direction by Rajiv Nair is another plus. The unit has put a lot of effort in getting right locations (I haven’t seen such a good flight take off and landing shots in Telugu films recently) Producers Sudhar Reddy and Vikram Goud made sure that they didn’t compromise on budget as entire film looks grand.
ishqAnalysis: First half of the film is nice and classy. Second half is ok with commercial twists. The narration of the film is slow. Plus points are good characterizations, nice screenplay, cinematography and music. A compact second half would have been good. Nitin is in his elements in Ishq. Ishq is likely to bring the much needed success to Nitin. You may watch it.










Movie Review: A film like " Businessman" is a cause for celebration, simply because it does away with forced comic interjections in the narrative. For once, the comedy in a mainstream Telugu flick is all situational without being slapstick. The humor is dry and loaded with sarcasm, taking pot shots on everything under the sun, but does the job nevertheless evoking peals of laughter. Kudos to director Puri Jagannath for coming up with those lines. 

And then there is Mahesh Babu, in full flow at that. "Round off chesi confuse cheyalanukuntunnara. Confusion lo inka ekkuva kottestha... " goes a punch dialogue. "Matladaniki vacchanu kabatti, manasaupurthy ga kottatledu..." goes another. As far humor goes it is definitely a step up. Some would say that the punch dialogues in "Businessman" are even better, wackier and quirkier than "Pokiri". The must haves of a Mahesh Babu pot-boiler are dutifully ticked off, rather well at that. Five minutes into the film, you get the feeling you are going to enjoy this one, and the feeling stays on till the end. 

Coming to the story, there isn't any. Mahesh plays Surya Bhai, who moves to Mumbai with a single point agenda - that of becoming the undisputed don of the business capital's underworld. It happens to be a time when Mumbai is enjoying a relatively crime-free phase with all the mafia kingpins being nabbed, much to the glee of Nassar, the commissioner of Police. 

His happiness proves to be short lived as Surya begins to recruit all the goons in the city. He calls his gang Surya Exports and Imports. He soon starts to cut deals with all and sundry - small time businessmen to the biggest politicians, even the Prime Minister. He corporatizes the whole business of mafia and gradually grows to become a rule unto himself. He has a little flashback too which is revealed towards the end. 

Chitra (Kajal Aggarwal) is the daughter of the Police Commissioner. She also happens to be Surya's love interest. The much-hyped lip-lock also turns out fine. 

"Businessman" is a typical Puri Jagannath film loaded with attitude and style. The narrative moves along at a breakneck speed hardly giving you time to catch your breath. The action is gritty and realistic without going overboard. The leading lady, Kajal plays the eye-candy to perfection, albeit not having the 'Ileana' kind of impact in "Pokiri". Guess you cannot help but compare this one to the 2006 blockbuster, for this is the first time Puri and Mahesh have come together since "Pokiri". 

As far as the performances go, Mahesh takes the cake. He had the author- backed role but, still enlivens the whole movie with an intense performance. The climax scene is especially rivetting as Mahesh switches from anger to comedy effortlessly. This must be one of his best performances if not the best. Mahesh literally carries the film from the start to the end. The supporting cast including Sayaji Shinde, Prakash Raj and Subba Raju do justice to their roles. Music by Thaman is good and the background score stands out, amplifying the experience. The film scores high on production values and visual imagery. 

All in all, it's an unpretentious entertainer that manages to strike the right balance. It might not be a cinematic wonder but sure has enough in it to keep you interested till the end. How much you like the movie might just be a matter of how fond you are of Mahesh Babu








Bodyguard
Cast: Venkatesh, Thrisha, Kota Sreenivasa Rao, Prakash Raj, Saloni, Subbaraju and Ali
Writer-Director: Gopichand Mallineni
Producer: Bellamkonda Suresh
Camera: Sam K. Naidu
Rating: ***

After being successfully made in Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and 
Tamil, here comes the Telugu version of hit film Bodyguard.

The Telugu remake with Venkatesh and Thrisha has remained faithful to the Malayalam version as it does not focus on commercial elements as was the case with the Hindi remake.

The highlight of Telugu version is that it has been directed by a local, talented youngster Gopi, while experienced writer Kona Venkat has penned the dialogues.

There is a lot of native flavour in the way the film has been narrated, though the situations have remained unchanged. Thanks to the presence of several top artists in the cast, Bodyguard carries a lot of appeal.

Like previous versions, the last 30 minutes are the main attraction of the Telugu version as well. The film touches an emotional peak in scenes leading to the climax and the twist in the climax has a universal appeal.

Technically, however, it does not stand out.

In the film, Varadarajulu Naidu engages Venky to protect his daughter who has been targeted by his political rivals. Some years ago, Venky had saved Naidu from an attack. Venky escorts Naidu's daughter Keerthi everyday to college. Sometimes Venky's presence disturbs Keerthi and limits her activities. She wants to get rid of Venky and tries to call him as an anonymous caller. Venky is confused about this caller who always expresses her love for him.

Eventually Keerthi herself falls in love with Venky. In a stunning and touching climax, Venky's background is revealed.

Venkatesh has perfected the art of taking up such matured and emotional roles. Thrisha looks gorgeous and charms the audiences. Saloni plays an important role in the film, but she is not so impressive.

Top actors Kota Sreenivasa Rao and Prakash Raj score in their respective roles. Ali and Venumadhav bring in a few laughs.

Bodyguard is a perfect family entertainer. The well-performed and neatly presented film is sure to appeal to women and family audiences.





Mr. Nokia (Manoj Manchu) is an orphan and a cellphone thief. Anu (Kriti Kharbanda) is a bank manager who is married to Kiran (Raja). Kiran is kidnapped just a day after their marriage. Anu needs to pay a ransom of 2 crores. She steals bank money and on her way to handover the money to the kidnapper. Meanwhile Mr. Nokia needs big cash to marry his girlfriend (Sana Khan). The rest of the story is all about what happens when the paths of Mr. Nokia and Anu converge.
Artists Performance
mr nookayyaManoj Manchu who is known for selecting hatke story lines has chosen another different story in this movie. Manoj Manchu looks muscular. He is extremely good in actionsequences and dialogue delivery. Kriti Kharbanda has a meaty role in this movie and she does justice. Sana Khan is okay as a material girl. Raja is a surprise in the movie and he has put on a bit of weight. Vennela Kishore entertains in the first half. Brahmanandam’s ‘uncle’ cameo is good and different. Murali Sharma is pretty good as a menacing kidnapper. Ahuti Prasad is entertaining as a politician.
Technical departments
mr nookayyaStory - screenplay - direction: The basic story line (kidnap thread) seems to be borrowed from a Mexican film titled Lucia Lucia (La hija del canĂ­bal). The story has two threads - one is hero's experience with love and heroine's husband kidnap. Screenplay is partly good. The narration is little slow. The director Ani who dillydallied with the setting of the plot in the first half, could able to get it reasonably well in the second half road episodes. However, the orientation and characterizations are over the top.
mr nookayyaOther departments: Songs scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja are good, especially Pista and Oke Oka Jeevitam. Background music should have been better. Cinematography by B Rajasekhar is partly good. The chasesequences and songs are shot well. The action sequences composed by Manoj Manchu are realistic and believable. Dialogues by Lakshmi Bhoopal are okay, but at time crosses the border. Editing cuts are good in songs and fights, but should have been more traditional during the narration of the story.
mr nookayyaAnalysis: Plus points of the film are Manoj’s action sequences and the screenplay in the second half. On the flipside, the direction should have been more compact and the plot should have been effectively set-up in the first half. The entertainment is good in parts. On a whole, Mr. Nookayya is a hatke film that targets people who like different films.