Film review: If 'Ram-Leela' had more roses than guns

Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela'
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Richa Chadda, Supriya Pathak, Gulshan Deviah
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
IE Rating: ** 1/2
To twist Shakespeare's immortal words, sometimes there is something in a name. In Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela', the legacy is double-barreled. There is not only the weight of the Romeo-Juliet saga (which the director acknowledges as inspiration in the credits), there is also a huge overhang of the Ramayan: the hero is called Ram, who is sent to 'vanvaas', and he returns to fight for all that is right on the day of Dusshera. And because he is also Romeo, he fights for his love. Only Sita is called Leela.
The result is equal parts exhilaration and exhaustion. Bhansali's 'Ram-Leela' is mounted as pure spectacle, no surprises there, because that is his style. The setting is the Rann, in Gujarat. The warring clans, the Gujju versions of the Montagues and Capulets, are attired in costumes where not one thread is out of place. Each scene is meticulously designed: the desert, the havelis, the swirling ghagras, the spurting of the blood. It gets to the point where you start feeling breathless, and that is exactly what Bhansali intends, for you to get encircled by his universe. And in that he succeeds. I was swept up by the way he builds up the love story, between Ram (Ranveer Singh) and Leela (Deepika Padukone). Where he fails-- his old failing-- is in the insistence on every little thing being perfectly choreographed: a messy love story requires messy emotions, and Bhansali doesn't ever let his gorgeous Leela's tears streak down her cheeks. No leaky nose, no hiccups, just back-lit loveliness, which becomes too perfect to be real.
In 'Saawariya', Bhansali had tried to do the same thing in palettes of blue and black with Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor. That world was more claustrophobic than inviting, and the film, despite the Kapoor lad dropping a tantalising towel, failed. This is much more in the director's familiar territory: the 'dhols' and the 'nagadas', the dances and the songs, the Gujarati idiom. Every character, minor and major: Supriya Pathak's Godmother-like Ba, Gulshan Deviah's heavily-kohled wannabe leader, Richa Chaddha as the woman who gets to make rousing love-and-let-live speeches, all the bit parts who play the members of the battling clans, speak in the lingo, and for the most part (to my ear) sound authentic. But the whole superstructure gets too stretched and too wordy (there is also a superfluous Priyanka Chopra item number) and crumbles.

Chandi Movie Review, Rating

	Release date : 08 November 2013 123telugu.com Rating : 1.5/5 Director : V. Samudra Producer : Dr. Srinubabu G Music Director : NR Shankar and Chinna Starring : Priyamani, Krishnam Raju, Sarath Kumar..
	Story : Chandi (Priyamani) is a powerful and talented young lady who is well versed in the art of combat. She is handled by a guy named Azad (Sarath Kumar) and together, they hunt down some government officials and political leaders. The helpless Police Department turns to the CBI for help and Nagababu comes in as a special officer to tackle the case. During the course of investigation, some shocking truths are revealed about Chandi. The young lady has a violent and tragic past. She belongs to the village of Krishnapatnam and her father is Ashok Gajapathi Raju (Krishnam Raju). They belong to the Alluri dynasty. The village of Krishnapatnam and Ashok Gajapathi Raju’s family are destroyed by the evil Minister (Ashish Vidyarthi), as they stand in the way of some lucrative mines. How this young lady turns into Chandi and avenges the destruction of her family is what the movie is all about. Plus Points : Krishnam Raju looks regal as Ashok Gajapathi Raju. Priyamani looks good in a few scenes. Posani manages to tickle the funny bone in one or two scenes. Minus Points : ‘Chandi’ is a text book example of how not to make a film. When a national award winning actress like Priyamani finds herself in such a mindless mess, one can’t help but feel sad. There is absolutely no logic or conviction in the narration. Samudra’s direction is very bad. Dialogues are terrible and cheesy. There is no entertainment quotient at all, save for a few scenes involving Posani. Sarath Kumar and Vinod Kumar have been wasted in poorly written roles. Ashish Vidyarthi is made to look foolish in the film. There is no emotional conviction in the film. Despite issues like land grabbing etc, the scenes do not make any impact on viewers. The famous anthyakshari scene from ‘Gabbar Singh’ has been destroyed in the film. Poor Harish Shankar will have a heart attack if he sees how the scene has been used in this movie. The film’s pace is quite slow and boredom sets in quite early. Poor placement of songs just adds to the misery. Technical Aspects : Cinematography of the film is very mediocre. Editing is not up to the mark as there are jump cuts in the film and transitions are not smooth. Music and background score are very bad and do not help the film in any way. Samudra’s direction is the biggest drawback for the film. There is neither entertainment nor serious political drama in the film. Verdict : ‘Chandi’ is an avoidable flick. The tagline of the film is ‘The Power of Woman’. But it should have been ‘The Power of Torture’. Poor direction, weak screenplay, bad dialogues and atrocious placement of songs just make this film unbearable.

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.