Performances of the cast
The lead artistes Brahmaji, Raghubabu, and Jeeva are adequate. Jeeva performed well in the emotional scene when they recognize Vijayachandar as their old school teacher! His dialogue "champEddaamaa!" was received well. Raghubabu acted with much ease, and Brahmaji maintained his usual naturality, but appears much younger than Jeeva or Raghubabu to be their classmate. The story revolves around Vijayachandar. He was okay, but strangely his voice sounded much older than his screen presence seemed. Among others, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam as a political leader who climbs the ladder to become the party president is extremely good with his catch word "ebbE!" and his dialogue rendition that sometimes reminds of the yesteryears' artiste Nagabhushanam. Brahmanandam dons the serious role of a sincere advocate that was received well, and he did particularly well in an emotional scene when his witness is murdered in the court premises, and was lauded by claps and whistles from the audience! Venumadhav as his junior (assistant) was also quite good, particularly when he takes up the case in the wake of Brahmanandam turning an eye witness to the case he had originally taken up as an advocate. However, their roles are limited to a few scenes. Bharani Shankar (who appeared as MLA Vithal Rao) has the potential to come up as a good villain if used well, but his role had limited scope too. Dhanush, Surya, Sangeetha, Tanikella Bharani (as a jailer), Uttej, Kadambari Kiran (as the neighbor of the family), Narra Venkateswara Rao and Vijaya Ranga Raja (as MLAs of the ruling party) were all adequate in their limited roles. Dr. N. Sivaprasad has a great ease in portraying such roles as local political goons. Sana (as a district collector), Sutti Velu (MLA of opposition party) and Rallapalli (MLA of ruling party) were totally wasted. Nutan Prasad as the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly (thus the title role) was good within the scope of the role, but the scope itself was much limited for his range as an artiste. Abhinaya Sree, Pujabharati, and Kausha appear as item girls in one song each.
Performance of Technical Departments
Scriptwriter and director Marudhuri Raja excels as the dialogue writer in the movie and pens thought-provoking dialogues as well as comedic dialogues with equal ease. Several dialogues were applauded much by the audience, particularly the mass-oriented ones. Interesting to note is that even the same audiences did not make any noises for item songs in the movie, and something that writers and directors of such movies should note is that public may not enjoy item songs or vulgarity as much as dialogues and scenes in a movie aimed at society. Some appreciable dialogues in the movie are presented at the end of the review, particularly since the director is originally a writer. The next best department is lyrics by K.K. Raviraj, who provided fitting lyrics to the movie, particularly to the song endukayyaa inta kOpam.... Music by Sai Kartheek is adequate in songs, but he could have used his skills better in elevating the scenes. Editing by the veteran Gautham Raju is good. Choreography was good in two of the item songs, in which choreographers also appeared in person. One of the steps in the song "parimaLam parimaLam..." definitely reminds of NTR in Yamadonga and Allu Arjun in Parugu, but could have been more gracefully presented. Fights were fitting. Lighting was good in some songs and scenes but camera work was inconsistent sometimes. Other departments were okay.
Bottom Line: It's a good attempt for a low budget movie, and can possibly fare decently in 'B' and 'C' centers. The so-called 'A' center audience may not even consider the movie worth watching, and the director did not make any attempts to try to reach to them. On the whole, it's a thought-provoking movie that could have been a lot better, but the director's limitations of care and conviction are clearly that 'A' center audience wouldn't even watch this movie. Only if the general audience can assure directors and writers that such movies can be appreciated enough can we see more such movies that let us introspect what kind of a society we live in.
Appreciable/Appreciated dialogues:
-
"EDu konDallO yE konDani evaDu kabjaa chEstaaDOnani aayana kadalakunDaa akkaDE koorchunnaaDu!" (Surya to Sangeetha, when the latter says that God has no heart to not care about their plight of having to heed to land grabbing.) (Appreciated with claps and whistles)
-
"maTTi muddalaku chaduvulu cheppi bangaaru bommalu chEddaamani mEmu udyOgaalu chEstunnaam!" (Surya to a student who abuses him in the college campus.)
-
"Master gaa unna rOjullO pai taragatikE veLLEvaaDini. Retire ayyaakE kindi taragatiki vacchaa!" (Vijayachandar)
-
"nuvvEdO Collector-vi kadaa ani naa kashTaalu cheppukundaamani vacchaanu. naakunna kashTaala kannaa neekE ekkuva unnaayi!" (Vijayachandar to Sana, when he goes to her office and witnesses political goons abusing her.)
-
"nyaayam inta suluvugaa dorukutOndi kaabaTTE dharmam haayigaa nidrapOtOndi!" (Vijayachandar to Dr. Sivaprasad, sarcastically speaking about the "justice" that they did to him by paying him 15 lakhs for his hard-earned house.)
-
"...mana bharatabhoomi karmabhoomi ani cheppaanu. kaanee, daani kharma ilaa kaalipOtundani anukOlEdu!" (Vijayachandar in the Legislative Assembly)
-
"ee kaalamlO... evaDi paapaanni vaaDi raktamtOnE kaDagaali" (Raghubabu in confession box at a church, referring about Christ cleansing sins of humans with his blood.)
-
"mee kannaa kukkalu nayam kadaraa! kottOLLevarainaa vastE bhau-bhaumanTaayi!", "Jeans, t-shirt vEsukuni pizza-lu tinTU kojjaalaa bratakaTam kaaduraa youth anTE!" (Kadambari Kiran, outrageously addressing the youth that doesn't care to even stop a kidnap that happened in their presence, and in another scene when he lectures how uncaring youth of today is.)
-
"meerE kaapaaDalEni nyaayam mimmalnEm kaapaaDutundiraa!" (Brahmanandam crying out to people running away from murder scene in the court premises when he calls for eye witnesses.)
-
"eeDiki bocchu tellabaDDaa raktamlO erupu chaavalaa!" (Goons talking among themselves about Vijayachandar)
-
PP: "meeru chaalaa ekkuva maaTlaaDutunnaaru!" Venumadhav: "meeru chaalaa takkuva chEsi maaTlaaDutunnaaru!" (during a trial in the court)
-
Sentry: "evaDO tappu chEstE nannu anTaarEnTi, sir!" Tanikella Bharani: "nuvvoka paDavalO unnaavanukO, daaniki evaDu chillu peTTinaa munigEdi andarU!" (in a scene where Tanikella scolds the sentry for supplying cigarettes to prisoners, taking contemporary examples of supplying cell phones, etc. to prisoners and turning prisons as 5-star hotels for their comfort.)