Tag Archives: Telugu

Marana Mrudangam

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Marana Mrudangam is Chiranjeevi in his mass hero avatar – meting out justice, charming the ladies, fighting evil-doers and dancing up a storm. I never cease to be amazed by A Kodandarami Reddy’s imagination and Marana Mrudangam is full of crazy details, wild schemes, stunts and an array of dodgy looking props. Plus – Ranjeet!

Johny (Chiru) and Billu (Nagendra Babu, Chiranjeevi’s brother) run a small restaurant/bar.

One day Johny stops to help Utpala (Suhasini) and Anusha (Radha) when their car has broken down. Utpala is a nurse, and Radha is a high powered manager of a hotel that also seems to trade in import export.

Two girls, two guys – it’s a love triangle waiting to happen. Utpala falls for Johny who has fallen for Anusha while Billu seems to fancy Utpala a little.

I don’t mind rom-coms when Chiru is doing both rom and com, but I was hoping for a bit more masala inspired action. Imagine my delight when Billu cracked an egg to make an omelette and found it was full of COCAINE!

No I don’t know how Johny knew how to identify cocaine. But he also knew how to track the drug back to its origin and so the thrills and spills began!

Salim (Ranjeet) is a very bad man, and not just because he wears an excessive amount of very tight denim. He is a cold eyed killer and rapist and the enforcer in Vasantdada’s (Suresh Oberoi) gang.

He has no impulse control and his character could be summed up as ‘Rapey’. Ranjeet also has a thing for staking people out to die. It’s neither fast nor efficient but he does persist.

Salim impersonates a policeman and lures Anusha out of her home, intending to assault her, but Johny intervenes. Utpala needs help too. Her brother fell into the clutches of Vasantdada and before dying managed to write a letter that will bring the gang down. Johny and Billu rise to the occasion and decide to eliminate the gang and get revenge for Vasantdada’s past crimes. Vasantdada’s henchmen all wear matching outfits in different styles and colours each time they appear which was a nice detail (and helped me remember which fight was which).

Suhasini is one of my favourite actresses and while this is a fairly small role she made an impression as the good natured and straight forward Utpala. She suffers terrible loss but is determined to do the right thing. Utpala isn’t confident to act on her own and relies on Johny and Billu for advice and to do what is needed. She has a comedy scene or two, and Suhasini is not a woman I expect to see rolling drunk on screen.  But she still looked lovely.

Anusha is a haughty heroine who doesn’t lack self-confidence at all. She is independent and determined but still needs Johny to save her on numerous occasions when having a sharp tongue isn’t enough.

And I haven’t mentioned the costumes. I think in this song the wardrobe guys were so horrified by this outfit

that they gave up on clothes for a while:

Chiru tends towards the high pants with the low belt, often doubling up on the fabric for both shirt and pants, and nicely accessorised with an eye catching array of gloves.

He opts for pleather for the big occasions, but as demonstrated in that song, costumes are not necessary for Johny to make a splash.

Chiru has better chemistry with Suhasini than with Radha, though perhaps that’s just my bias. It’s clear that the saucy Anusha is Johny’s type.

But really the focus of his performance is the heroics and that he does with his customary verve.

Nagendra Babu is sweet as Billu. Compared to Johny he is quiet and shy but he is handy in a fight. He favoured denim overalls and flowery shirts which added to the slightly comedic nice guy image. He is quite tall so the effect when he was flinging little bad guys around with abandon was very funny. It’s not surprising that he and Chiru have great rapport on screen and I liked seeing them bounce dialogue off each other in their scenes.

The story is based on a popular novel. The author Yandamoori Veerendranath adapted the screenplay himself and the pace and plotting is a strength of the film. There are obviously some scenes designed purely for maximum Mega presence, but Chiranjeevi manages to incorporate them all into the character of Johny so it flowed quite well.

The climax of the film is fantastic but I did have a horribly sick feeling in a couple of minutes of footage involving horse stunts. I am certain not all of the horses were unharmed and suspect a couple didn’t survive. If this worries you please don’t watch from around 2hrs 5 min to 2 hrs 8 min. Before that I was delighted by one of the most ridiculous fake aircraft I think I have ever seen and there were some nifty come-uppances for the baddies.

The Illaiyaraja soundtrack is nice enough but I struggle to recall the songs without the visuals. Chiranjeevi and Radha don’t have the greatest choreography to work with but give it all loads of energy and flair. Visually the film is very striking with lots of crazy camera angles, stylised compositions and reminds me a little of some vintage 60s spy shows, albeit with acid wash denim.

Marana Mrudangam is a pacey masala entertainment, and if you are prepared to perhaps skip the horse scene, this is very good fun. And really, it was worth seeing just for the surprise of the naked Chiru chicken dance. 4 stars!

Saroja

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Saroja is a fairly standard thriller with a decent dose of dramatic tension thanks to some very good performances and loads of visual flair. I ordered the Tamil DVD but was sent the Telugu dub, which apart from the obvious difference also cast Srihari instead of Jayaram in a pivotal role. I quite like Srihari as an actor, and as I speak neither language subtitles are subtitles, so I was happy enough. I’ll be referring to characters by their names in the Telugu version.

Prakash Raj is Viswanatham, a successful Hyderabadi businessman. He is a self centred man, in an uneasy marriage and not giving his teenage daughter Saroja as much attention as he gives his breakfast.

That is until Saroja (Vega), is kidnapped. It’s one of my favourite Prakash Raj performances as he conveys fear, despair and regrets with only a scant amount of dialogue. His reactions and expressions are just perfect. There is a scene where he and his wife are watching home movies of Saroja. They can’t look at each other as they have an intimate conversation that is realistically awkward and painful.

The depth of characterisation established so simply helped me care about what happened to Saroja since it meant so much to her father.

Saroja gets an intro song about girl power and the evils of alcohol, which she delivers after sneaking out of her window to get to the gig. She is largely absent until late in the film as the drama is centred on the police operation to find her, but her character is established as resourceful and independent.

Srihari is Viswa’s friend Ravi, a charismatic policeman who takes on this very personal case. Srihari running isn’t exactly a greyhound so the chase scenes had me worried, but he is an authority figure and pillar of strength. Ravi orchestrates the police activity to recover Saroja and is on hand to witness the devastating effect the kidnapping has on his friend. There is a bit more complexity to his role than just a standard crusading cop though and Srihari and Prakash Raj share some excellent eye to eye moments. I don’t really buy his excuse for something he does, but it wasn’t a big deal overall.

There is a second storyline that will collide with the straightforward police procedural. It centres on a group of friends, totally unrelated to Viswanatham and his concerns.

Vaibhav is Rama Swamy.  The girl he loves (Kajal Aggarwal in a brief appearance) gets engaged to his friend Ajay. He is trying to make the best of his lot and comes across as a moody but not unpleasant guy. Ajay (Shiva) is a soap actor who thinks he is a little more special than he is, and tries to get by on what he considers to be charm. He gets some of the better intentionally funny lines as he cites his TV serial commitments as a reason for avoiding anything he doesn’t want to do. Rama’s older brother Renga Swamy (SP Charan) is the average guy – happy, married with a daughter, middle class, comfortably podgy. Premji Amaren (brother of the director) is the comic relief, Ganesh, and almost every time he opened his mouth I wanted to kill him. To be fair, his straight dramatic scenes were good and a few of the jokes were funny.  Every time he saw a pretty girl, badly dressed angels would cavort around her, and the angels got grumpier as they had to keep reappearing for different girls.

But the comedy track mostly involved Ganesh acting stupid and grimacing wildly. If you find a man screaming his lungs out at the sight of a rat, or telling everyone loudly why he has to be quiet, funny maybe you’ll like him more than I do.

The boys set out on a roadtrip from Chennai to Hyderabad to go to a one day match. After driving for a few hours, including about 257 snack and pee breaks as well as a run in with Brahmi, they are delayed by a major road accident and decide to take an alternate route.

The storylines intersect when the guys take a wrong turn in the dark and end up in a spooky factory complex occupied by the imposing Sampath (Sampath Raj) and his gang, who have Saroja captive. The adrenalin rises from this point until the film’s conclusion as the boys try and extricate themselves from their perilous situation and accidentally seem to be rescuing the girl. There is always time for a dance break though! Kalyani (Nikitha) and Sampath entertain the troops and I have to say seeing all the bad guys in a dance number was a lot of fun.

The ‘heroes’ and the baddies are ordinary guys and the fights and chases are consistent with that. There are no amazing flying leaps and stunts, but there is a strong feeling of the fear and effort in those scenes which is amplified by the lighting and composition of the shots and Saravanan’s cinematography is impressive. Even when things got less believable, the characters remained true to themselves and didn’t develop superpowers. There is some question in my mind as to how well these guys could navigate an unfamiliar place in the dead of night, but whatever. I thought Vega was convincing and in most scenes looked like a school girl. There were signs of a romantic attraction between her and Ram that I thought was a bit not right in view of their character ages. It’s just a fleeting thing but was it necessary for it to be there at all?

The Yuvan Shankar Raja (Venkat Prabhu’s cousin – what a family) soundtrack is good and the range of musical styles supports the full span of the drama. While the songs are well placed in the story, I’m not sure all the picturisations were necessary. The montages sometimes caused a break from the overall mood as they were even more stylised than the rest of the film. The direction relies on gimmicks but that visual interest and excitement helped to give a standard plot a bit of freshness. The story doesn’t completely rely on the visuals so I didn’t feel it was too glossy for its own good. The performances, especially Prakash Raj’s, are compelling on their own.

It’s a film where the outcomes probably won’t surprise anyone, but the way those things happen might. If you want a modern looking comedy/drama/thriller that’s not too heavy on gore and showcases some good character actors, give this a go.  4 stars!

Heather says: Saroja has all the right ingredients to make a good film with an interesting story, excellent cast lineup and snappy dialogue. But it suffers a little from a very long set up with perhaps too much detail in some scenes and not enough in others. There are also a few scenes where the action takes place in poorly lit sets and I found it very hard to tell what was going on. However, once past the slow beginning, it’s a very enjoyable watch as it blends comedy with action and drama in a way that is rare in Tamil cinema. I do like the way the action is preceded with a date and time stamp in the opening sequences as it gives the feel of an American cop show and plants the idea that time is important. Although perhaps this isn’t followed up quite as well in later scenes. The introductions to the various characters are generally good, but I would have preferred director Venkat Prabhu to spend a little more time with Saroja’s family. It is clear that Viswanathan is caught up in his work and doesn’t have time for his daughter, but I think a little more information about the family dynamic would have made their characters more sympathetic. It took more time to get a feel for Saroja and her father as a result, although this may very well have been intentional, as we learn about the family as the film goes on, just as the four friends do.

The interaction between the friends is well done, and feels very realistic. Perhaps it’s not quite as realistic though that they remain undiscovered sneaking around the bad guys’ lair with all of their arguing and long conversations. But the comedy in these was good and the story was well played out in these scenes. The action sequences, at least those that are visible, are also well choreographed and there are some really good ideas in the execution of the various fight sequences.

I liked the twist at the end which I did not see coming at all, although I thought the justification by the villain was rather weak. In it for the money alone might have worked better, but it was still a good ending. I also enjoyed the comedy with Ganesh seeing angels appearing around pretty girls. All of the four characters worked well for me as they each had some endearing character traits and some really off-putting ones – just like in real life. They seemed like much more normal guys than typical filmi heroes which makes the film more interesting to watch.

This is the first of Venkat Prabhu’s films I’ve seen and it’s inspired me to find his others. I’d say skip over a lot of the set-up and then sit back to enjoy a really good action comedy. 3 ½  stars.

Khaidi

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Khaidi is apparently based on the Stallone film First Blood, and while that sort of helped as I watched without subtitles, the context is completely different. Where First Blood was John Rambo dealing with post traumatic stress and using his lethal skills against the former employer that had made him a killer, A Kodandarami Reddy makes Khaidi a personal drama that charts the path of a man on his own mission of vengeance. Also – the added songs and dancing were very pleasing.

The film starts with Suryam (Chiranjeevi) being picked up by the police as he is walking towards a crossroads. He refuses to tell the police anything, not even his name. He is a mysterious and silent stranger in black, and there is a disquieting fury in his eyes. When Suryam is threatened with having his moustache shaved off, he has flashbacks to some earlier torture which sets him off and he fights his way to freedom.

He is taken in by Dr Sujatha, who patches him up and tells him he needs a lawyer but it’s obvious from his expression that he intends on sorting out his problems without involving the legal system. I’m not sure if they knew each other before she found him unconscious on the street, but there is an element of sexual tension or curiosity in some of their scenes. I did enjoy Chiru’s quick peek under the blanket to see if he was decent before he tried to storm off (silently – he hasn’t spoken a word to this point).

Sujatha passes him off to nosy neighbour girl Rosie as a relative who had been in an accident, and it seems he may have found safety. She does discover he is a wanted man, and based on something in her own past (I guess) decides to trust her own judgement about him.

Finally, Suryam speaks and his story starts to emerge, partly through this surprising interlude:

Suryam is a poor boy who is pursued by, and falls for, Madhulatha (Madhavi) and based on that clip, I’m not surprised she was a bit keen.

Her wealthy landlord father is unimpressed but she refuses to consider any other man. Madhu is used to getting what she wants, and will not back down despite the consequences to Suryam or herself. She seems to be her father’s daughter as he also refuses to compromise and in true filmi fashion he decides to ruin Suryam’s family.

Suryam has witnessed his family home taken away, his father murdered, his farm sabotaged, his sister attempted suicide and was finished off by the bad guys,  and he was implicated in her death. Any one of these things might tip someone over the edge, but all of them? He is a time bomb. He has lost everything, and without the security of family and home, there is nothing to restrain him. Pursued by police and by the landlord’s men, Suryam is in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.

This was a very successful film for Chiranjeevi and by all accounts launched him into action hero territory. He is excellent as both the ordinary boy and angry man. Chiru is adept at using his eyes to express strong emotion and he switches from sorrow to implacable rage in an instant. There are lighter moments within the story although the focus is firmly on the trajectory of Suryam towards his revenge. I was highly amused by a scene where a local Romeo was sleazing on to Suryam’s sister, offering her a sari. Chiru forces the guy to change into the sari and sends him off with a flea in his ear.

The final showdown is insane and kept me on the edge of my seat as Chiru takes on the law, a band of axe wielding ‘tribal’ folk, trees that stand in his way, thugs with evil designs on Madhu, a (fibreglass) horse and eventually the bad guys all while using a range of weapons including knives, arrows, bees and guns and having survived gunshots, being set on fire and shot out of a cannon (OK I made up that last one). Whew! And I recognised much of that action sequence from Charan’s debut film, Chirutha. So why are people talking about him starring in a remake of Khaidi when…never mind. Enjoy Chiru in action mode:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madhu was a fairly annoying character and Madhavi had little to do apart from rant and pout. She looked lovely and seems to be well suited to the more aggressive roles as she has a strong physical presence. There were some positives.  As she was going to storm off after a spat Madhu shrieks and points at two snakes, then I think Suryam says something like ‘they’re too busy shagging to bother biting you…look!’ and we have this:

Awesome. A random snake dance that has NOTHING to do with anything other than the costume designer wanting to get Chiru into a pair of silver bike shorts. Bravo! Although I did realise that there may be some connection to the Jeetendra Effect as he starred in the Hindi version of this film.

I did give Madhu some reluctant applause late in the piece when she escaped her house using the old sari-as-a-rope trick. But I took it back minutes later for a lame snake wrestling scene. The woman has played a snake quite well so I expected better from her in that department. But then I cheered again when she managed to outrun several men on horses, all while keeping her wedding sari decorously tied. I think Madhavi did the best she could with a role that was ultimately just to be both the hero’s trial and his reward.

I was more interested in Sumalata as the independent and intelligent Sujatha. She stands up to her neighbour who is a police officer, and has a strong sense of justice. She seemed to be a more complete person than the rather sketchy Madhu and I found myself wondering more about how she fit into the story and I’m sure subtitles would have helped explain that. I also liked her very glam 70s house with cuckoo clock sound doorbell.

The story is predictable, as little except the body count and method of despatch is left to guess at, but there is still some suspense largely due to the intense performance from Chiranjeevi. There’s also a hefty dose of WTFery but you know, I really liked the commitment to making it memorable. If you like your films action packed and your heroes invincible, this is well worth seeing. 3 ½ stars.