CAMERAMAN GANGA THO RAMBABU REVIEW

Let me clear you something first. If you think that this film is about media and its role in society, you are wrong. Or you may hav thought that this film is about some Ganga and Rambabu. Nope. You cannot see much of Ganga in this film and you don;t bother about it. (Lets come to that later). This film is all about Pawan Kalyan and Pawan Kalyan.
Rambabu is a macho guy, who doesn't bother even to travel places to beat people who are unlucky enough to get their names on TV and newspapers for wrong doing. Wait...He stops you somewhere by the road and ask you what you do for a living. If you say "Nothing....chaltaa", boy you are done. He will beat you to pulp. Of all the super human abilities he has, the greatest one is to bear "Over acting". Thats why when Tamanna overacts all through this film, he silently bears and even smiles but never complains. Wish we all had that patience. Now to the story. After coming to know what a gutsy man Rambabu is, a channel offers him job. And there too he does the same. This time instead of beating normal brats, he beats politicians, Ex-CM etc. He rises to a star status in the state, because when the police are too lazy to arrest a murderer politician, he does it( The police's excuse is that they are not daring enough to do it). And as part of the script the politician should plan Rambabu's murder and he obeys. Yes he is the villan. While the first half of the film is proceeding, you want to give pawan Kalyan an idea. If he so much likes to use his punch power and karate skills, it would be better if he can join the police. The police in this film seem to be dying waiting for such a gutsy hero. What is the use of mike in his hand and camera behind him, when he wants to beat the evil out of everyone? There are very few scenes in this film where his brain functions like that of a journalist. Rambabu doesn't have a journalist inside him. He is the typical telugu cinema hero, who just cannot see injustice going on infront of him. Again to the story, he gets fired from the channel for being too aggressive. And then we come to see a stupid and brain less villan. Prakash Raj is such a headless chicken that when he murders his dad, he does it as if he is scratching his back. It gets recorded by his driver. And he takes the most foolish decisions at the most crucial situations in his life. Ex:- Murdering a journalist in a democratic country like India and expecting that the journalists would fear him thereafter. Ha ha ha.....Puri Jagannath seems to be obsessed with gangster flicks that he ripped off a gangster villan and placed him in a politician seat. Too illogical. The rest of the story is about how Rababu stopped this Satan from becoming the CM.
The only scene where Rambabu seems to have achieved something through media is the scene where he confronts Prakash Raj about "Telugu Udyamam" Its good. He talks sense there. And it worked actually. This is one of the few scenes where the wits of Puri set the fire on screen. but to come to such a point, Puri spends too much time dragging and its almost one and half hour by then. Too much pressure has been on Pawan Kalyan to make this film impressive. His star power comes to save at lots of places but it is brightly evident. As the film nears the climax, the entire point of media takes a back seat and Pawan Kalyan's ideology is highlighted. This scene would make his fans go crazy. Much has been done in this movie targetting his fans. Even the CM says that he is Rambabu's fan, and its all whistles in the theatre. A lot of cinematic liberties are taken all through the movie that we wish it had a tighter screenplay to make them invisible. Puri Jagannath seems to have forgotten the word screenplay long back.

The climax is well done. Its where Puri gives a kick to all Pawan devotees. Pawan Kalyan has never before been glorified like this on screen. I liked Gabbar Singh because it is a film which considers its only business is to reveal, mystify, glorify and squeeze the image of Pawan Kalyan. The charismatic character that is created in that film can get away doing anything because we allow him to do anything to entertain us. Thats why even if he treats his policemen as slaves, we laughed but never complained.  This is primarily because the film doesn't intend to take itself too serious. But "Rambabu" is not like that. It comes up with some social message but neglects its own loop holes in the plot. It takes itself serious, and then we obviously ask logical questions. This film claims that itself is not a song dance routine, but it does discuss serious problems in the society. Then why the characters are far from reality? Why a cardboard villan? Why mockery of itself? 

And then about Pawan Kalyan. If there is an actor in this industry who has the most genuine and the most cut throat following, its undeniably Pawan Kalyan. He is the best of all when it comes to oozing charm all over. He rocks the screen with his bare presence, talks fire, fights the hell and appears sincere in whatever he does. Its solely for him that you can watch it once.

Rambabu doesnt discuss about media and its role, it doesnt mess with intelligent questions, Its not a shankar's kind of film that discusses contemporary problems. The issues that it addresses are vague. The message it delivers is simple. Repair yourself. The country gets repaired. The film is a show of Pawan Kalyan's offscreen persona. You will not feel sorry for watching it, but you dont miss anything if you miss this.  A tighter screenplay and an intelligent characterisation would have made this a good watch. Pawanists may like it due to glorification of their hero's image and his speeches. But if you expect something sensible and engaging, its your wish if you want to watch it.

As a final say, its FANS THO PAWAN KALYAN

PS:- As a Pawan fan, I enjoyed watching him talking, walking, dancing and fighting. But the reason I am disappointed is that there is nothing more than that. Puri is the culprit. I am interested to see how general audience and critics would respond to this film. Lets wait!!!!!!

PS 2:- Shame on Manisharma. The background score is directly lifted from THe Dark Knight Rises.

BROTHERS REVIEW (MATRRANN)

K.V.Anand's films always hold a surprise somewhere. In every movie of his (Veedokkade, Rangam, Brothers), there would be some character that misleads you into believing that it is good. In Veedokkade, its the hero's friend, in Rangam, its the CM guy, and here its the Russian lady. (She makes you think she is the potential villan, but turns out to be a do-gooder) . And this time, the film is misleading as well. When you are told that a film is about conjoined twins, you expect the story revolving around their emotions or atleast to throw light into their inner selves. But what you get is a scientific thriller. I am not disappointed with it, but to say.

Sachin Khedekar plays a scientist whose experiment to create a superhuman misfires into conjoined twins(The heroes ofcourse). He struggles to get recognition as a successful genetic Engineer, but ends up as a businessman, whose product "Energion" claims to bring instant growth in children. His product becomes a big success and everyone is happy along with the twins. His two sons, though twins have nothing in common except looks. One is a shy introvert and decent guy, while the other is a fun freak. (We agree that it is the norm that the twins should be radically different otherwise there is no point of a double role!). okay, so they love the same girl, and because they love each other too, one of them should sacrifice. And then the story takes some interesting twists and turns. Something is wrong with Energion. It is revealed in the first half itself that Sachin Khadekar is the culprit and he knows that his product could erase an entire generation. If there is something else to be revealed that could thrill us or shock us, this movie could have become a very good film to watch. But thats the end of the game, and the end of life for one of the twins. The dead guy knows everything, tells us everything and passes away, leaving the rest of the screenplay to get restricted to a semi-boring second half.

For a film that aims to be an entertaining scientific thriller without so much of visual thrills, it is bound to depend on a screenplay packaged with twists and turns that are unexpected. It should hold your interest till the end, and you should be bothered with a lot of questions and you should enjoy being bothered. But what mistake the film does is that it reveals the most riveting twist in the first half itself, crippling the screenplay in the second half. For a film to emotionally connect with the audience, it should have fully developed characters. The behavioral traits of the twins are shown but the characters are poorly explored. This is a film where a havoc is caused by one man, just because of his pure love of science and disregard to human emotions. it obviously is visible that the character of villan is as much important as the hero. But where do we see what his thoughts are about? Where do we see him taking a vow to kick the world's ass for ignoring him? In the climax, he bursts out that no one cared for him as long as he tried to get a break as a scientist, and thats why he turned the society around him as his research lab. Good. But merely by uttering those words he cannot make us feel sympathetic towards him or gnash our teeth against him. Because we do not get a chance to travel along with him, to see him fall and rise. Remember the "Doc Oc" in Spiderman 2? We get to see how he started with a noble cause, how and why he lost control and how he turned a monster. That made him the most menacing villan, and hence endeared spidey to us. For a plotline that depends on the villan as much on the hero, its a blunder that villan's character is left unexplored. In that case the havoc he causes, should provide the visual thrills for us to get engaged. But that too doesnt happen as it is a medical scam. Even the unveiling of the mystery didnt help, as the plot ran out of surprises post the interval. Thats why whatever is revealed in the second half , fails to connect with the audience. The shock factor missing in the second half, worsens it further.

The reason I took much space to point out what the film lacks, is because I liked to like it. It is a potentially entertaining film, that missed the target due to simple mistakes. Picking up a line like this for a film is a commendable attempt. But the execution is where it has gone wrong. The film has that endearing factor that makes us overlook all the cinematic liberties it takes, but the faulty screenplay irritates you and makes you turn towards them. This is not a bad film. We cannot miss to mention the technical finese with which K.V. makes his films. The way he mixes entertainment with out of the box story lines is remarkable. But when a movie fails, its obvious that we talk more about why it failed than about whats good in it. Isn't it?

As a final say, it doesnt make you regret watching it.
PS 2:- Surya's previous flick "7th Sense" made me think twice before deciding to watch this movie. "7th Sense" is such a crap that it made me laugh at all its serious moments and cry at all its jokes. Compared to that disaster, this is way better.

STARBUCK

Note to my regular visitors:- This article is written for a special purpose. My regular blog visitors may wonder why I am talking about some french movie. And you can understand this review only if you watch the film. This is not my regular article, and you are welcome if you want to give it a shot though. --Swaroop

The kind of planet we are living on, challenges your decision to be a father. Because its we who are bringing into existence, a living being and hence the reason in the first place, for all the sweat and tears it sheds. And if our children are optimistic enough to consider this life a gift, they would love us and be thankful to us. When the hero in this film finds out that one of his sons is seriously disabled, we can see a set of questions in his face along with a pinch of guilt and helplessness. "Is it me who is responsible for his condition? I can do nothing to revert this." may be what he says to himself when we can see a bitter expression in his face.Given supernatural powers, he would heal him then and there and would hug him warmly. But as a mortal, he is not left with any choice but to stare like that. When he himself is struggling with his life, he came across people who came into this world because of him, and facing the same reality. How do their failures ans successes affect him as if they are his? Why can't he abstain himself from meeting them? "Starbuck" is a film that toys with the above kind of ideas but not as seriously as I presented them in this article, but uses comedy as a vehicle to carry all the burden.

David Wozniak is a not-so-lucky guy who is indebted to people who drown you in your bath tub to say hello. And he has a girlfriend who is highly and deeply disappointed with him. His life, defined and destined to be inside the family butcher business is sapless and messed up, to cut short a long story. And the most interesting thing is that some twenty years ago he "donated" sperm that resulted in hundreds of successful pregnancies. To his dismay, all those "children"(now twenty-somethings) sue him to reveal his true identity. They want to know who their biological father is, but it makes David restless as he doesn't want to get public. But he gets the photographs and addresses of his children and decides them to visit them as a stranger.

We can see flashes of happiness in him when his son rocks the soccer court, a father's concern when he visits his daughter, and the funnier scene is where he follows his son who kisses his boyfriend on his lips! The scenes where he helps them as a complete stranger are so sweet, but they are to be followed by sweeter ones towards the climax. Its surprising to ourselves that even when the film refuses to let go even one opportunity to get melodramatic, we find it still sweet and loving. (The peak point of sentiment is the group hug scene in the climax but it will not let you take your eyes off the screen as its simply beautiful). The courtroom scenes doesn't get tempted to discuss David's choice to remain anonymous and it helped the film a lot from getting serious. Because a film that starts on this kind of a plot has the danger of becoming a laughing stock if it takes itself too serious. The film rightly sails on wit and humor.

Paternity or fatherhood is not just a relation or responsibility but comes as a package of many feelings and emotions. Psychology says that parents see their children as an extension of themselves and hence the showering of love. May be true but sometimes they get partial towards the "extensions" and thats where we get to see fathers taking bullets for their daughters and mothers cutting the bread into two for their two children and she is OK with a glass of water. Of course this film doesnt crave for this level of melodrama, but all the feelings flow as tangents to the story. It is obviously implied that the new people in his life, and the experiences he went through have made him a better person. May be through helping them and being with them, he learnt how to help himself and start life again. "Simple emotions kept simple" is the principle it follows. Its amazing how film makers often miss this simple logic.

The film has its own share of flaws like "All-positive" characterization, tilting towards melodrama a bit more than enough etc. But what makes you overlook those is the sweetness it offers, the wit with which it presents itself and good acting. The magic is that the film, throughout its length, seems to be grazing on the surface but when we finish watching, we realize that it has transcended the deepest depths it can. But as said before, its a bit thicker coating of goodness.  All the characters are as good as they can be, and that would make the critics sharpen their pencils perhaps. But lets analyse the film on what it is, rather than on what it can be.   It aimed to stream through cute moments, warm hugs and simple guitar music, and that doesn't bother you much. I am waiting for the English version of the film, as I didn't understand most of the dialogues in this French language. Despite language being a barrier, I enjoyed this movie.

P.S:- The scene where David sees his new born child summarizes what this film intends to show from his inside, but that scene cannot be described. Its to be watched. May be thats what film making is about!