Varudu - A Review

No kidding. I went to watch the movie just for the “Aidurojula pelli” Song. If someone is wondering why one would watch a movie for a single song, I am committing no greater sin than those who watch movie for a hero(male/female audience)/heroin(male audience). Recently one of my relative got married in the same model of 5day marriage. I was the unfortunate one who missed the fun. So my intent was to get compensated by the movie media. I was not much disappointed.

Storyline:
Let me start with a well known story. A Dharmic king was blessed with a great son. He got him married to a princess who is both beautiful and chaste. When the husband is away, a demon kidnaps the princess and locks up in his country and tortures her to fulfil his desire. Being a Chaste wife, she rejects the offer and keeps chanting husband’s name. Husband arrives and kills everyone including the demon and gets back his wife. They live happily there after. No marks for guessing, it’s our own Ramayana. Director Bapu had one such experiments of telling purana tales in social versions. (Mutyala Muggu – Uttara kanda of Ramayana and Kaliguga Ravanasurudu – Ramayana retold) There is slight connect to Ramayana in the story.

Story is about an about to be NRI boy who for a change leaves decision of marriage to his parents and the marriage proceedings comprise of the first half of the story. The bride gets kidnapped on very day of marriage and second half is sequence on how she was gotten back by her husband.

If audience are to be categorized as class and mass, first half is for class audience and second for mass.

Performances:

Gunasekar: I was happy with director for taking through first half very well especially marriage part. As I mentioned earlier my intent was only 5 day marriage. He fared very well in picturising it, probably as well as Krishnavamsi would have done. Most of the items were shown for brief moment but no significant mistakes were made. (including using plain cloth with swasthik instead of fancy writings people are using these days for separating bride and groom shows that necessary ground work was done.)

Second half I was annoyed. Gunasekar was notorious for his overdosage/usage of settings and graphics. He did same thing in second half even when there is no obvious need. Also too much violence in second half made it look little clumsy. Also opening lines by Chiru did not score any additional marks.

Arjun: He was soul of the movie and probably sole reason if it runs to success. He carried weight of the movie on his shoulder. His dance performances were as usual awesome though a bit routine by now. In emotional scenes he has matured a lot. (I still recollect emotional scene he has done in climax of movie Happy and felt yuck)

Bhanusri: She did justice to her role, considering this is her first movie. How ever, hiding her detail till end increased lot of curiosity among audience. Some of them imagined a brand new girl Aiswarya Rai was being screened and many of them were disappointed. In one way it is marketing failure than actress.

Support Crew: Suhasini has done well in her role. Refreshing to see Anitha Chowdary after along gap. I did not find a miscast in the crew. (even though I felt Geetanjali would be ideal fit for Arjun’s grandma’ role.) Brahmanandam did not add lot of value though.

Veturi & Manisharma: Best part of movie is the approx 15 min song and lot of credit goes to Veturi & Manisharma for the lyrics and variation in the song so that it does not bore audience.