Katamarayudu Review

Director : Kishore Kumar Pardasani(Dolly)

Producer : Sharrath Marar

Music Director : Anup Rubens

Starring : Pawan Kalyan, Shruti Haasan

Rating: 2.25/5

After the disaster of ‘Sardaar Gabbar Singh’, Pawan Kalyan decided to remake Ajith starrer ‘Veeram’ and came up with ‘Katamrayudu’.Though the promotions were low, Pawan’s craze helped the film a lot. The expectations are sky hig over this film and let us see how the film fared.

Story

Katamrayudu (Pawan Kalyan) is a strict man who lives along with his brothers in a village. He doesn’t marry and thinks that a women creates problems in the family. So, his brothers decide to make him love a girl so that they can live happily with their love interests.

They successfully bring love inside Rayudu’s heart on Avanthika (Shruti Hassan). She is a peace lover and one incident shatters her where she gets to know the real side of Katamrayudu. She leaves him but Rayudu goes to her village and successfully convince everyone.

While everything seemed falling in place, Rayudu gets to know about the threat to Avanthika’s family. Rest of the story showcases how he saves them and put an end to his enemies.

Performances

Pawan Kalyan is definitely the heart and soul of this film. He carried the entire film on his shoulders. His style, looks and mannerisms are a treat to his fans. It is his charisma that elevates some dull scenes at places. His romantic scenes with Shruti Hassan had worked out well.

Shruti Hassan does a fine job in this film. Though her character is crucial in terms of story, there is very less scope for her to perform. She looked a bit out of shape in the songs.

Nassar is fine as a good samaritan. Ajay stands out from the rest among the brothers. Others like Kamal Kamraj, Siva Balaji, Chaitanya, Pradeep Rawat and Pavitra Lokesh did an ok job. Ali is entertaining and Rao Ramesh impresses us with his timing though his charcter is under-developed.

Technicians

Cinematography by Prasad Murella is good and gives a rich look to the film. Dialogues are fine and may impress the mass audience. Editing by Goutam Raju could have better as a lot of scenes in the second half looked lengthy. The production values are decent but proper care should have been taken on the CG front. The graphics during train fight scene is below par. Fights by Ram-Lakshman are routine but may appeal to Pawan fans. Music by Anup Rubens is the biggest drawback as none of the songs failed to make an impact except ‘Mira Mira Meesam’. The sad part is that Anup disappointed everyone with his background score too.

Director Dolly impresses in the first half. His effort is visible in the action episodes and romantic track during that part. But his screenplay takes a severe beating during the second part. Had he worked more on the latter half, the film would have been a definite commercial treat.

Analysis

‘Katamrayudu’ has nothing new in terms of story. So, a lot of care should be taken while writing the screenplay. Though nothing much happens in the first half, director wisely sprinkled good comedy and made it entertaining. Even the romatic track looks endearing. But, the comedy and romatic part gets sidetracked in the second half.

The entire second part is filled with emotions and fight sequences. But the emotional scenes were not properly executed. The pace of the film goes down and audience start feeling bored. Also, the not so good music by Anup Ruben was not properly placed and disturb the flow of the film. There are too many villains in this film but none of them could match Pawan’s level.

Conclusion

As said earlier, the film leaves you with mixed feelings as it entertains you as well as tests your patience sometimes. The screen presence of Pawan Kalyan is the main reason to watch this film. Otherwise, it is just another routine entertainer in Tollywood.