Tag: Hanu-Man

Guntur Kaaram!

January 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I am not a fan of Mahesh Babu. (Sorry fans!) I am more of a story centric viewer. I was not at all eager to watch Guntur Kaaram. Firstly, I didn’t know it was directed by Trivikram Srinivas, secondly, I didn’t particularly enjoy the trailer! In-spite of this, I watched Guntur Kaaram, because, we have a family friend A, who gave us free passes for the movie! (Fans do so much for their Stars!)

Without much ado, let me review the movie.

Review:

Directed by : Trivikram Srinivas

Released On : January 2024

Actors: Mahesh Babu, Sree Leela, Rao Ramesh, Prakash Raj, Murali Sharma, Jayaram and Jagapathi Babu.

The story starts with a fire accident and the ensuing fight causes Raghu Babu to kill Sunil by mistake. (Sunil in a brief cameo.) Incidentally, the fire also causes Ramana (Mahesh Babu, MB for short in this post) to lose sight in his left eye. (I am not exactly sure about it, but how can a person who is partially blind in an eye, not even show a little bit of discomfort in his fights or dances? That’s hero worship for you, where even the director is blinded by the hero and his fandom!)

The fire accident also causes a rift between both MB’s parents, where his father ends in jail and mom leaves her only child to marry another gentleman, Rao Ramesh. They have a son, Rahul Ravidran (another useless cameo!), who could have been replaced by a card board figure and no one would have known the difference, as such!

Jayaram, plays the father of MB, who does nothing but sit in his corner table and listen to situational songs. (Perfect example of casting an actor for a role without scope for acting. He hardly gets a scene to perform. I loved him in Ponniyin Selvan and even Ala Vaikuntapuramlo)

How would a child turn out if the father lives in his own world and a mom who leaves the child and never stays in touch? The child would have issues, with everyone and everything. That is the reason for MB’s temper issues. (Guntur Kaaram)

Ramya Krishna plays MB’s mom and she gets a scene or two, to show her prowess.

Anyway, Prakash Raj, plays maternal grandfather of MB. As you might have guessed he is the villain, who wants nothing but MB signing off his inheritance and the likes. His lawyer Murali Sharma is incharge of getting MB to sign. This somehow brings Vennela Kishore and Sree Leela into the picture, who are after MB to get him to sign.

That is where everything goes wrong for me. Which lawyer in the world would send his own daughter to pester a man, who is known all around to be Guntur Kaaram, known for his temper issues?  Why is there a need for so many cameos? Why did Jagapathi Babu even work in the movie? Why is there a character of cousin in the movie, called Raji? What is the significance? The only thing I could come up with is, Trivikram roped in one actor each from all his hit movies, to give Guntur Kaaram an extra push!

But…

Guntur Kaaram feels similar to Ala Vaikuntapuram.

Rahul Ravindran replacing Sushanth,

Ramya Krishna mirroring Tabu, (both living with their rich fathers)

Prakash Raj – villainous grandfather replacing the lovable grandpa Sachin Khedekar

Sree Leela replacing the dusky Pooja Hegde

Meenakshi Chaudhary and her counter part Nivetha Pethuraj

Mother sentiment in both the movies, even background score is similar to Ala Vaikuntapuram. Lack of creativity and imagination from director and music director is sad.

Trivikram even managed to rope in Eashwari Rao ( the nurse from Ala Vaikuntapuram. She plays MB’s aunt.)

Seasoned actors Prakash Raj, Ramya Krishna, Jayaram, Murali Sharma, Vennela Kishore performed well within the scope of their respective roles. MB never lit so many cigarettes in any movie ever! He has performed better in the dance numbers, probably not wanting to lose to Sree Leela! The movie is worth watching only for its seasoned actors and MB.

I am not a fan of the unnecessary dance performance by Sree Leela, in the godown! We all know she is a fabulous dancer, but the sequence is so out of place. I loved Ala Vaikuntapuramlo better, because, the hero worship was less apparent! (Atleast it had top notch acting from Murali Sharma, Sachin Khedekar and Allu Arjun, while the story was the main hero!)

P.S:

  1. It has its moments, but it is no ‘Athadu‘ or ‘Khaleja‘. It is just a forgettable Guntur Kaaram! (But fans may disagree with me.)
  2. I dozed off in the second half of the movie, that sums up everything for you.
  3. I know a hero needs to cater to his fans, but I was surprised by mass song MB performed at the end! It reminded the song, Ma Ma Mahesha from Sarkar Vari Pata. That is not all. The concept of the heroine approaching MB with ulterior motive is similar to what Keerthi Suresh did in Sarkar Vari Pata. Overall, Guntur Kaaram is a mash up of two hit movies but it still is a mediocre one time watch!
  4. If you are in a mood for a new movie, with fantastic visuals, goose bump moments and without cheap thrills, head straight to ‘Hanu-Man‘ and thank me later.

Hanu-Man!

January 14, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Ever since I saw the trailer of Hanu Man, that too with Teja Sajja as the main lead, I wanted to watch the movie in theater, thanks to it being a super hero movie based on Hindu Mythology. Added to that Teja had been my favourite child artist after my other favourites and National award winners Tarun and Shamilee, both from the children’s movie directed by Mani Ratnam, Anjali (1990).

Anyway, watching same kind of movies is so boring. I also watched Guntur Karam. I will review it next. I think this is the month of movies as I also watched 12th Fail and The Archies in quick succession!

Let’s get back to the Hanu-Man.

Review:

Directed by : Prasanth Varma

Release Date : January 2024

Hanu-Man

The movie starts with a school going child Micheal and his love for super heroes. (which is generally normal in kids) But once his love turns into obsession, this child grows into a super villain  and as far as I know, that is the first instance in a movie, where the villain is introduced in the first scene itself! His mom tries to give him good advice and he also manages to retain it in his brain, the only thing is that he never understands the true meaning of it. So that is our clever, rich and psychotic villain.

Then comes the drone shot and the majestic Hanu-Man statue, guarding the village of Anjanadri, where we find the male lead Teja, playing Hanumanthu, a common thief. Thanks to the build up given during male lead introduction, we may imagine the hero to be good at fights etc, but he is not! He is a failure in many ways. (That clearly shows the contrast between Hanumanthu before and after gaining his super power.)

He is in love with his childhood crush, Meenakshi, a doctor, who visits the village for summer holidays and also enlightens the villagers, who are under the iron fist of a local pehlwan.

Long thing short, during a fight among the goons and the hero, who is in it to save Meenakshi, Hanumanthu falls into the ocean and finds himself a stone, with the power of Lord Hanuman. (The stone is said to contain a drop of Lord Hanuman’s blood. Nice!)

Suddenly the good for nothing thief, finds himself at the centre of supreme power and uses it to help the locals bring down the pehlwan. He also manages to get them to start electing a local head to rule them.

Meanwhile, Micheal happens to see a video of Hanumanthu showing off his super power and lands at Anjanadri, on the pretext of constructing a hospital for them!

The rest of the story is about how Hanumanthu saves the stone from the villain. The movie ends with Hanumanthu becoming a super hero, with a red cape, like Doctor Strange!

Teja as Hanumanthu is believable and is a natural. He is better than some other star kids, who suck at acting.

Amritha Aiyer as Meenakshi has little scope for acting, she is good in her scenes.

Vinay Rai, the hero of Vaana (2008 movie, meaning Rain) now plays a villain who is on the verge of being psychotic. Even if the duration of his role is small, he is impactful.

Sathya, Getup Srinu bring some laughs. I liked how a bird, probably a humming bird, hovered on Sathya’s head, always! Lol! This scene itself shows how well comedy has been blended in the scenes, without adding extra dialogues to impress us, the audience.

The best role however went to Varalaxmi Sharatkumar. Her role is relatable too.

Lastly, there is Samudrakhani, who plays an important character in the movie. I won’t reveal it! (I will forever remember him as the villain from Ala Vaikuntapuram. He even has a song in the movie. Which villain ever had a song in a movie? It is a rare feat!)

Vennela Kishore, for once played a character role and not anything related to comedy. He is one actor who has a natural flair for comedy after the world record holder, Brahmanandam. This is purely my personal opinion. (Sunil used to have similar flair for comedy. But he has transitioned effortlessly into character and villain roles. He is not suited for hero roles, thank God he found his positives.)

Hanu-Man has its highs and lows, but some scenes are memorable and will remain with us for sometime. Just like how Rajamouli makes a powerful statement with memorable scenes, Prashanth Varma has also executed it.

The one scene I love, is where Hanumanthu, after beating up the goons, sits on top of them, which is similar to how Lord Hanuman makes his own throne with his looooong tail, in Lanka, to sit a few feet taller than the Lankesh, Ravana.

Hanuman seated on tail throne in front of Ravana – @Tadipatri, A.P.

The other scene I love is when Hanuman is shown as the shadow of Lord Rama. Chef’s kiss on its way!

It is satisfying to watch Hanuman at the climactic scenes.  Thankfully, the CGI is beautiful, which will satisfy an average movie-goer and the scenes with gold coloured Hanuman statue are good too.

Overall the movie is a pleasant watch. There is no vulgarity or cringe worthy scenes, so that’s a plus.

Go ahead and watch it, I am eager to see what will follow this movie.

P.S:

  1. Prasanth Varma, the director is ambitious and the movie is made under Prasanth Varma Cinematic Universe! There will be sequels coming up and I hope they will surpass the first installment. Way to go. About time someone made a super hero franchise in India.
  2. Even though Hanu-Man showed a lot of potential, only limited number of theaters or multiplexes had shows for this movie. Injustice! It proved the rumour that big producers don’t allow small movies.
  3. I loved the song in which the hero Hanumanthu fights the bad guys while the village ladies were busy making the yummy mouth watering mango pickle!

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