Drushyam Movie Review

Cast: Venkatesh, Meena, Nadhiya
Director: Sri Priya
Music Director: Sharreth
Producer: D. Suresh Babu, Rajkumar Sethupathi
Cinematography: S. Gopal Reddy
Editing: Marthand K. Venkatesh
CBFC Rating: U
Release Date: 11th July 2014
Run Time: 158 Minutes

Telugu movie Drushyam, a remake of Superstar Mohanlal's Blockbuster Malayalam movie Drishyam, has been creating ripples in the media ever since producer Suresh Babu announced it. This film is slated to release in theatres on July 11. The makers held a special screening of the movie on July 9. It has come out really well on screen. Victory Venkatesh, who is known for his family entertainers, is sure to rock the viewers again. See: Drushyam cast and crew | Special screening photos Directed by Sripriya Rajkumar, Drushyam is a good suspense thriller with high entertainment quotient. Venkatesh's sterling performance is the main highlight in the film. The engrossing screenplay, Sharreth's soothing music and amazing background score, S Gopal Reddy's cinematography, a few comedy and sentimental scenes and beautiful locales are other attractions of the film. The slow-paced narration in first half and some forced romantic scenes are its big drawbacks. ADVERTISEMENT Sripriya Rajkumar has taken the original story from the Malayalam movie, but she has made a few changes to suit the taste of Telugu viewers. Especially, she has added a little extra romance, which appears like it has been unnecessarily forced in the film. Otherwise, everything is fine in the film. She has been successful in maintaining the suspense element throughout the movie. She has very good grip on the narration of the film. Drushyam is high on emotional quotient. The film starts off with slow-paced narration, which drags for almost 30 minutes in the first half. The movie gains a momentum with a twist at the interval. The second half of the film is simply superb and the suspense element makes you sit on the edge of the seat and watch the movie biting your nails. The climax is also good and it makes the viewers to walk out of the cinema hall with a contented heart. Rambabu (Venkatesh) is a married man from the middle class. He is the provider of cable network connection in a small village near Vijayanagaram. His happy family life is tormented, when Varun, son of Geetha (Nadhiya), who is the Inspector General of Police, disappears after he harasses Rambabu's daughter. Geetha feels suspicious about Rambabu's family and she uses her power to harass them. What happened to Varun? How does Rambabu struggle to save his family? Answer to these questions will form the crux of the story. Venkatesh has a tailor-made role in Drushyam and he has delivered a brilliant performance in it. He is the showman in the film. As his wife, Meena has also done a good job and her chemistry with Venky is a good to watch on screen. Nadhiya, Naresh, Ravi Kale, Chalapathi Rao, Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao, Chaitanya Krishna, Benerjee, Sameer, Roshan Basheer and others have also done justice to their roles and their performances are good assests of the film. Drushyam has decent production values and Sharreth's soundtracks and amazing background score are the main attractions in the technical front. S Gopal Reddy's camera work is another highlight of the film. Marthand K Venkatesh's editing is good. Other technical departments have also delivered a commendable job. Overall, Drushyam is a good suspense thriller, which will be a treat for family audience. You will enjoy it a lot, if you have not watched the Malayalam film Drishyam. It is a must watch movie for family audience. Continue to read Drushyam review by other film critics in the slideshow. Drushyam - Movie Review 1/8

Masala Movie Review, Rating

Release date : 14 November 2013 123telugu.com Rating : 2.75/5 Director : K. Vijaya Bhaskar Producer : Daggubati Suresh Babu Music Director : S. Thaman Starring : Venkatesh, Ram, Anjali, Shazahn Padamsee

Story : Balaram (Venkatesh) is a good hearted strongman of the village of Bheemarajapuram. He treats everyone with fairness and takes care of their needs. But there is one thing that Balaram cannot tolerate and that is lying. If he catches someone lying, Balaram metes out a severe punishment to the offender. Into this scenario comes in Rahman (Ram). Along with his sister Sania (Anjali), Rahman comes to the village in search of a job. With a brave deed, he falls into the good books of Balaram but circumstances force him to change his name to Ram. He soon becomes a trusted aide of Balaram and all is well for a while. However, Balaram catches Rahman while he is offering Namaz and asks him for an explanation. Out of desperation, Rahman reveals that he has a younger brother named Rahman. (He says the brother’s name is Rahman, since Balaram knows the original guy as Ram). This Rahman character is portrayed as a gay and Balaram tasks him with teaching his sister (Shazahn Padamsee) the art of dance. Rahman struggles to manage the roles of Ram and Rahman and a confusion drama ensues. As can be expected, the truth comes out in the end and Balaram is outraged. Will he forgive Rahman? That forms the story of ‘Masala’ Plus Points : Venkatesh is quite entertaining as Balaram. Some of his butler english dialogues manage to evoke a strong response from the viewers. Ram looks good and he has managed to portray both the characters of Ram and Rahman quite effortlessly. He manages to make people laugh with his gay comedy. The movie has some entertaining moments in the first half. A few comedy scenes between Venkatesh and Jayaprakash Reddy have come out well. In the second half, Ram’s gay comedy sequences have come out well. Minus Points : Rohit Shetty liberally borrows ideas from Telugu films and ‘Bol Bachchan’ is no exception. To ‘remake’ a film like that in Telugu is a strange idea. Rohit Shetty’s films work due to the good entertainment quotient but they usually do not have strong story lines. ‘Masala’ too suffers from this issue. The plot is quite stale and outdated. Kovai Sarala’s recording dance scenes look garish. The twists and jokes are quite predictable. Another big issue is the placement of songs in the film. The songs are quite mediocre and they do not help the film in any way. Shazahn Padamsee needs to brush up her acting skills as she has one single expression for all emotions. Anjali has been wasted in an insignificant role. The climax block is terrible, with poor graphics and unnecessary hungama. Technical Aspects : Cinematography is quite average. Editing is not smooth as there are a number of jump cuts in the film. Thaman’s background score is ok but the songs do not have his trademark energy levels. Anil Ravipudi’s dialogues are good in places. Vijay Bhaskar’s direction is not very impressive. Entertainment quotient and pace keep dipping at a number of places. Verdict : ‘Masala’ has a few good moments. Venkatesh and Ram have tried their best to carry the film with their comedy timing. But a stale plot and outdated screenplay hamper their efforts. Any Masala gets a perfect flavour and taste only when the ingredients are blended in the right proportions. Sadly, that is not the case with this ‘Masala’.

Masala Telugu Movie Review, Rating

Masala - Cast & Crew

• Venkatesh
• Ram
• Anjali
• Shazahn Padamsee
• K. Vijaya Bhaskar
• Daggubati Suresh Babu 
•  Masala Movie Rating: 3.25/5

• Release Date: 14 Nov 2013
  Genre: Comedy - Romance
  Language: Telugu
  Director: K.Vijaya Bhaskar
  Masala - Story
  Masala is the story of Rahman (Ram Pothineni) stays with his sister Sania (Anjali) and they are legally fighting to get the title of their property. But, the odds turn against them and they lose the case.Their well-wisher, Narayana (M S Narayana), advises and convinces them to migrate to his village Bheemarajupuram, and assures Rahman that he will get him a job at his owner's place. And the owner is none other than the powerful Balaram (Venkatesh Daggubati).
  Rahman accidentally falls victim to an indistinct situation which makes him lie about his name in front of the villagers in Bheemarajupuram... Hence, a series of cover-ups, goof-ups and comic situations comes up, where to cover one lie; Rahman starts padding up witha bigger lie telling people that he also has a twin brother and then, starts the real story.
  Ram lands up working as a supervisor with the lie hater Balaram. Destiny plays a cruel role and forces Ram to perpetrate a bundle of lies in front of Balaram. What happens next? Will Balaram ever come to know about Ram’s real identity and his lie? Watch out the film to know more
  Masala - Star Performance
  Venkatesh Daggubati’s comedy timing is good, in fact he's the reason you get some laughs out of the film. The way he says the Telugu lines in English, or the scene where he says 'My English better than British' are just phunny.
  Ram was okay as Ram, but he was atrocious in the without moustache Rahman’s character. His performance in the interval bang is more like a drunkard than a gay dude. Ram’s mannerisms in Ram character recall his performance in Ready. Like Ram’s emasculate dance act just before the interval seems elongated and Venkatesh’s fustian English transcriptions, despite being frequently phunny, is so exaggerated that you lose the semantic biffs at several occasions.
  Anjali looks completely out of the character, the part where she plays the lover of Venkatesh in past is just feeless. Anjali & Shazahn Padamsee didn't have much to do other than provide scope for romantic numbers. Short dresses didn’t suit Shazahn in the Meenakshi Meenakshi track.
  The rest of the cast is as expected, loud and pretty much intolerable except for Jaya Prakash Reddy, Ali & M S Narayana who try to bring in some sort of order and balance to the chaos but of course aren’t given enough room.
  Masala - Techinical Team
  Rohit Shetty is really lucky that his films run well at box office inspite of having terrible madcap scripts. But Vijaya Bhasker is not as lucky as him.
  Director just lifted nearly every scene from Bol Bachchan and translated them into Telugu. He failed to understand his mantra “Hardwork is keyhole to success”. Working with ever popular formula of lies, lies and more lies creating confusion and more confusion, very much like another phunny phileem in Tollywood. Vijaya Bhasker failed to elevate Anjali’s flashback in an imp active way, even confusion of lies didn’t work well in Telugu.
  Thaman SS music was not upto his standards. Even BGM failed to lift thescenes. Vijaya Bhasker totally failed to grab the music he wanted in this film, “Thats why Balaram says music is fire handle with care”. The song shot at Hokkaido, the second largest island in Japan which marks this film as the first Indian movie to shoot in Japan is nicely shot.
  Choreography is fine for the other songs. Cinematography is neat, camera work is good in Meenakshi Meenakshi & Ninnu Chuddani songs. Editor could have easily cut short the film by 10-15 min in the film.
  Masala just copied Rohit Shetty’s action choreography into Telugu, which just failed. Dialogues are promising especially few English translations are hilarious. Production values are grand.
  Masala - Analysis
  Masala is an official remake of Rohit Shetty’s Hindi film Bol Bachchan which had Ajay, Asin, Abhishek, Prachi & Amtabh in the cast. Despite of having such an impressive cast Hindi version just failed to reach Rohit Shetty’s mark success at box office.
  Masala fails from the start as the comedy element didn’t work, the cast is imperfect and they don't seem serious about their performances (leaving Venkatesh Daggubati). It is so shabbily made that you will instantly feel that director Vijaya Bhasker has lost interest in the initial parts of the film.
  First half of the film is draggy and second half it makes audience tiresome. Masala is a wearisome entertainer, better avoid it in theatres.