Varudu telugu movie reviews
Punchline: efforts gone in the wrong direction
Genre: Action/Family
Type: Straight
Banner: Universal Media Cast: Allu Arjun, Bhanusri Mehra, Arya, Suhasini, Asish Vidyardhi, Vinaya Prasad, Ahuti Prasad, Naresh, Sayaji Shinde, Brahmanandam, Ali (SA), Sunil (SA) and Sneha Ullal (SA)
Music: Mani Sharma
Cinematography: RD Rajasekhar
Editing: Anthony
Dialogues: Thota Prasad
Stunts: Stun Siva
Art: Ashok
Visual effects: Alagar Swamy
Story - screenplay - direction: Guna Sekhar
Producer: DVV Danayya
Release date: 31 March 2010
Story
Sandeep (Allu Arjun) is a youngster with modern qualities and a broad outlook. He is extremely suave in his looks, but strongly traditional and moralistic at heart. He asks his parents to search a bride for him. Sandeep believes in the choice of his parents and he tells them that he would see his bride only at the time of muhurat (time of jeelakarra bellam ritual according to Telugu weddings). He also wants to have a traditional 5-day wedding which was followed by Telugu people a century ago. He falls in love with the bride Deepti (Bhanusri Mehra) at the first sight, but she gets kidnapped by Diwakar (Arya) just before tying the knot. The rest of the story is about the reason behind the kidnap and how Sandeep got his love back.
Artists Performance
Allu Arjun is excellent as the groom who goes all out to get his bride back. His mass dialogues are good in the second half and he danced with extreme energy in the first hanusri Mehra has typical Punjabi looks and she suited the limited role of bride. She is extremely good-looking in traditional attire. It’s a brave decision for Tamil hero Arya to do a negative role in Telugu. He is extremely talented and looks really macho. However, his characterization is unappealing. Suhasini and Asish Vidyardhi are alright as parents of hero. Sayaji Shinde should seriously consider learning his Telugu diction right. He is taking Telugu audiences granted by tweaking the pronunciation to his convenience. Rao Ramesh is good with controlled performance. Ahuti Prasad is routine. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao did a role. He is alright. Sneha Ullal is glamorous in her cameo. Sunil trimmed down a lot and is awesome with his dance movements during his Anita Chowdary and Sameer are good. Usage of original families as wedding guests gave authentic feel.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: The concept of 5-day wedding is fascinating. However, Guna Sekhar couldn’t capitalize on it as he preferred the same old Ramayana treatment to his story by concentrating more on the duel between the hero and villain in the entire second half. Guna Sekhar did well in the first half, but faltered in the second half. The screenplay of the movie is commercially viable till the scene in the second half where Karuna start telling the flashback of the villain. Then onwards, the screenplay of the movie has gone haywire and it got audiences disorientated from the proceedings. The song featuring 5-days marriage is wonderfully shot. But excessive orientation towards graphics and unwanted action sequences didn’t go well with the main theme of the movie. Some of the scenes like hero carrying heroine on his shoulders with saline bottle look highly unconvincing. The interval block should have been given when villain says ‘marchipo’ to hero for the first time. There is something seriously wrong with the characterization of the villain. It is ok to show villain as a psychopath, but the director designed it such a way as if the villain has some super-natural powers (just like Pasupathi character in Arundhati movie). The climax of the movie is an example of such inconsistent characterization. The hero-villain fight on towers in climax is inspired by ‘X Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)’ the Hollywood flick, the characters posses supernatural abilities. By keeping that fight in this movie’s climax, the director created negative impact.
Other departments: Mani Sharma is adequate. The placement of the songs is inconsistent. Two songs are placed together in first half and there is a huge gap between two songs in the second half. Cinematography by RD Raja Sekhar is excellent. Dialogues are not up to the mark. Graphics are worth-mentioning. However, the color/tint chosen wedding during wee-morning hours look artificial. Lot of effort has done into graphics, but the desired result is missing. Art direction by Ashok is good. I liked the set of tree and waterfall in second half better because it appears highly natural. Producer Danayya has spent enormous amount of money on this film and it shows.
Analysis: First half of the movie is decent. Second half runs out of steam in the midway. The movie becomes uninteresting from the moment the flashback of villain is opened in the second half. Plus points of the movie are 5-day marriage concept and casting. On the flip side, the screenplay in the second half and hero/villain thread play spoilsport in the movie. The hallmark of any great director can be gauged from the way he/she sticks to the basics (without overlooking the emotional content) while making big-budgeted extravaganzas (ex: James Cameron for Avatar/Titanic). Guna Sekhar seems to have concentrated more on graphics, action episodes and sets in than sticking to the basics. All his hard work and effort is put in the wrong direction for this movie. Let’s hope that he will bounce back with strong content (like Okkadu) for his next movie. We have to wait and see if the summer advantage will bailout Varuru or not.
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