Homam Review

Cast: Jagapatibabu, Chakravarthy, Mamata Mohandas, Madhurima, Mahesh Manjrekar, Pradeep Rawat, Brahmaji, Raja Ravindra, Ahuti Prasad, MS Narayana, Dubbing Janaki and others Camera: Bharani K Dharan Editing: Bhanoday Lyrics: Suddala Ashok Teja Music: Nithin Raikwar & JD Chakravarthy Background Score: Amar Mohile Art: Satya Presents: Shreya Productions Producer: Kirankumar Koneru Screenplay & Direction: JD Chakravarthy. Banner: Strom Pictures Date of Theatrica Release: August 28, 2008 NonstopCinema Rating: 2.75/5 A free-make of Hollywood hit Malli (Jagapatibabu) could not gain entry into Police Academy as his father was a criminal. Noticing his interest in the police job, Viswanath (Pradeep Rawat) takes him as an undercover cop and tells him to be with a mafia group led by Daddy (Mahesh Manjrekar). Malli turns a trusted man for Daddy. Likewise, Daddy also manages Chandu (JD Chakravarthy), a rag-picker, to admit in Police Academy and he turns a police officer, who passes information about the police movements to Daddy. Viswanath prepares a team to checkmate Daddy’s activities with the help of Malli and able to catch Daddy and his gang. However, the police could not frame charges as they could not get the evidence. At that time, both Daddy and Viswanath reveal to each other that their man is in the other team. The respective team starts searching about the black sheep in their group. Once the condition of Malli’s mother, who was in a hospital, turns critical and the doctors advise Malli to keep her happy. So Malli tries to convince her that he was a police. As she did not believe it, Malli asks Viswanath to help him in convincing his mother. At that time, Viswanath gets killed. So, Malli decides to complete the operation which was named as ‘Homam’ by Viswanath. At this juncture, Chandu was able to find Malli as an undercover cop. At the same time, he eliminates Daddy, as he starts blackmailing him. Now, it is the turn of Malli to prove that he was a cop and at the same time punish Chandu, who was behind leaking of secrets to mafia gang. How he managed to complete the ‘Operation Homam’ is the climax. Jagapatibabu, who played rough characters in films like ‘Gayam, Antahpuram, Hanuman Junction, Brahmastram, Samanyudu and Lakshyam’ once again played a full time action film called ‘Homam’. He gave an excellent performance and changed his body language completely for the movie, with well-toned body. At the same time, he could emote well during sentiment scenes involving his mother. JD Chakravarthy also played well as a crooked cop and showed no inhibition to pose before camera and a heroine half-naked, despite the fact that he himself directed the movie. His role has a negative touch which is good to watch. Mamata Mohandas and Madhurima, who played the heroines had not much scope to perform, but were able to fill the glamour slot well. Mamata Mohandas appeared romantic in a couple of scenes, while Madhurima appeared quite chivalrous. Pradeep Rawat for the first time played a soft role on the Telugu screen. Mahesh Manjrekar’s villainy is quite soft and fresh for the audiences. Ahuti Prasad, Raja Ravindra are good in their roles, while Brahmaji played an angry young police officer’s role. Chakravarthy, who had directed the film, chose Hollywood kind of taking in the film and his direction had the resemblance of his mentor Ramgopal Varma. It is almost a free-make of a Hollywood film ‘The Departed’, which in fact, was a remake of another Hong Kong film ‘Internal Affairs’. There are many scenes which were almost copied from the original. However, to suit the nativity, the director chose to keep mother sentiment and heroines in the movie. Despite all these facts, the taking style of the director would definitely impress the audiences. The reveal of the suspense at the interval bang was good. Cinematography by Bharani is okay, while Bhanodaya’s editing is also adequate. Music by JD Chakravarthy in association with Nithin Raikwar failed to impress. None of the songs are melodious. At the same time, there are two songs which are full of curses and chidings (Thitlu). The choreography of songs involving both the heroes in the same songs confused the audiences. Being a complete action film, the film failed to provide entertainment completely. The comedy by MS Narayana failed to impress the audiences. Moreover, the abrupt ending of two main characters played by Pradeep Rawat and Mahesh Manjrekar disturbed the tempo of the film to some extent. As a whole the film would attract the ‘A’ centre audiences well, and one had to wait and watch how far it could attract the mass audiences in ‘B’ and ‘C’ centres.

Kathanayakudu Review

Cast: Jagapatibabu, Rajanikanth, Nayanatara, Meena and Mamata Mohandas, Vijaykumar, Sunil, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, MS Narayana, Narsing Yadav, Duvvasi Mohan, Kondavalasa Lakshmana Rao, Rallapalli, Gauthamraju, Gundu Hanumanta Rao, Tanikella Bharani, Geeta and others. Dialogues: Marudhuri Raja Music: GV Prakash Kumar Lyrics: Veturi, Ramajogaiah Sastry & Ananta Sriram Choreography: Lawrence, Brinda, Ashok Raj Art: Thota Tarani Presents: Seven Arts Camera: Arun Krishna Producers: C Aswini Dutt & GP Vijaykumar Screenplay & Direction: P Vasu Banner: Vyjayanti Movies Date of Theatrical Release: 1st August, 2008 Yet another Tear-Jerker on ‘Friendship’ Balu (Jagapatibabu) and Ashok (Rajanikanth) are friends. Both of them are from poor families. Ashok is poorer than Balu and the latter used to feed Ashok and they used to watch films together in childhood with Balu’s pocket money. After completing 10th class, Balu encourages Ashok to join films and sells off his earrings for the train fare to Chennai for Ashok. Later, they get separated. Balu falls in love with a girl Sri Devi (Meena) and leaves the house to marry her. Ashok becomes a Super Star and gains a massive image and wealth. But Balu remains an ordinary poor barber, who doesn’t have at least proper furniture in his saloon. He is blessed with three children and continues to struggle for survival. He is unable to pay the tuition fee for his daughter. At this juncture, Ashok visits the village for an outdoor shooting. Balu’s children plead with their father to take them to Ashok, but Balu fears whether his friend recognises him or not. So, he could not dare to make even an attempt to meet Ashok. How the villagers humiliated Balu, who claimed that he was the childhood friend of Ashok? Did Balu meet Ashok? Did Ashok remember his childhood friend? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax. Rajanikanth played his real life role in the movie. Once again he enthralled the audience with his stylish gestures and looked glamorous. Though he had not much scope to perform he proved his might in showing the histrionics in the climax and mesmerised the audiences with a brilliant speech, of course, in the voice of SP Balasubrahmanyam. The veteran singer’s dialogue modulation matched aptly to Rajani’s style. The other superb performer is Jagapatibabu. His character was portrayed as a down to earth kind of man, with deglamorised face. However, his performance is worth watching all through the film as a poor barber. The director was able to extract good performance from Jagapatibabu, which matched his earlier films like Antahpuram, Gayam etc., Meena was apt as a housewife, who really understands the problems of her husband and convincing. Nayanatara also played the real life role as heroine in the movie. Other artiste did complete justice to their respective roles. Comedy by Sunil, Dharmavarapu, Ali, MS Narayana and others provided good entertainment.    

'Hare Ram' Review: Good For Technical Efforts

Film: Hare Ram Rating: 3/5 Banner: Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Arts Cast:  Kalyan Ram, Priya Mani, Sindhu Thulani, Kota, Raghu Babu, Laxmipathi, Brahmanandam, Ali, Venu Madhav, Apoorva etc Music: Micky J Mayor Dialogues: Swamiji-Vijay Story: Gowri Shankar Art: Vivek Editing: Gowtham Raju Cinematography: C Ram Prasad Stunts: Ram-Laxman, Selva Director: Harsha Vardhan Producer: Nandamuri Kalyan Ram Release Date: 18 July 2008 This is Kalyan Ram's second movie on his home banner. His efforts are seen in big way. He tried to showcase his acting prowess as spilt personality. Let us see how he carried his idea on celluloid. Story: The film is about an IPS officer Hari (Kalyanram) who is busy investigating the murders of a news reporter (Prabhakar) and then a well known doctor (Rajeev Kanakala) and then discovers that these are the murders done by his conjugal twin Ram (Kalyanram). The story goes that Ram has a problem with his brain and is unable to control his hyper emotions about few things which makes him a beast at times. He would not even hesitate to kill and does not like anyone being praised or belittling him. In this process, he builds a grudge against his own brother who is good at everything and tries to kill him right during their childhood. Their mother (Seetha) is unable to tolerate all this and takes it upon herself to change Ram, so she takes him away from Hari to avoid further hatred but then not much change happens in the nature of Ram even after they grow up. Meanwhile, Hari is often chased by Anjali (Priyamani) who poses as a bank employee but in truth she is actually a CBI officer who comes to arrest Hari since she suspects his hand in the killings of a news reporter (Prabhakar) and a well known doctor (Rajeev Kanakala). Apparently, the doctor happens to be the younger brother of the health minister Siva Reddy (Kota) and from then on the minister is closely on the heels of the killer. Anjali finally manages to arrest Hari successfully through a plan of hers and soon she realizes her folly when she chances upon his mother and understands the entire story of Hari and Ram. Why does Ram commit the two murders? Does he change his attitude towards his brother? Can Ram get out of the case smoothly? All this forms the rest of the story.  Performance:  Kalyanram has put his heart and soul to come up with a good performance and though he was nice in most of the scenes, he failed out during the intense scenes which required good depiction of emotions and expressions, his dialogue delivery is ok. He portrayed good histrionics in the role of Ram. Priyamani worked well on screen as a 'Glamour girl'. Kota was the apt choice for the corrupt politician but there was not much gravity to his role. Seetha did her role effectively as the unlucky mother, the comedy track was an utter disappointment and despite the presence of highly experienced and entertaining actors like Brahmanandam, Ali, Raghu Babu and Venu Madhav, nothing happened to the funny bones. Ashok Kumar was hysterical which was annoying. The others were okay with their performances but could not contribute much to the film. The director has shown his amateur approach and though the idea was clear in his mind, he messed up narration with some shoddy screenplay and sour dialogues. The saving grace of the film is some good background score and worthy songs along with top notch camerawork and well executed stunt scenes though the fight sequences were quite savage. Costumes were good on the lead pair and editing was alright.  Censor Act: One does not understand what was the need of muting surnames like 'Reddy' and  words like 'Maoists' and there were quite a few loopholes in few scenes which will take ages to debate. Why censor board is keen on those elements is not known. And kicking on groins and squeezing the penis region in fights are not censored. The board left those scenes and gave 'A' certificate-justified that way may be.