Chandrasekhar Yeleti undertakes a new ‘Prayanam’

A couple of years ago,on one fine morning, I was stranded in Bangalore’s HAL airport (or the old airport as we now describe it) for some 4-5 hours. The reason being my flight and most other flights were delayed due to fog condition and so I was caught unawares. Since the agenda was only a meeting with a retail chain towards lunch time, I was hoping to catch up on some other agenda’s and catch the evening flight and return back. You see those were the pre recession days and could easily fly short distances like Chennai-Bangalore and get back the same day too . Well I do miss those days I guess. Before you wonder if this post is going to be about my ramblings on recession, flying etc- let me clarify that it’s not what I have in mind. I just narrated this incident to tell you all how I wish I had at least known the story of Chandrasekhar Yeleti’s ( C.Y from hereon ) latest Telugu movie-‘Prayanam’ by that time.If that were so, who knows those few hours could have changed my life.
For those who have seen or heard of C.Y’s previous movies namely Aithe, Anukokunda Oku Roju (remade as Sunday in Hindi) and Okkadunnadu, it would surely come as a surprise to know that Yeleti this time has changed tracks and gone in for a lighthearted romantic film in the form of Prayanam. Before talking anything about the movie- I have a question to ask. What would any guy who has a lot of time to while away in an airport try to do? Well yes the normal responses would be reading, checking your mail/chatting, having endless cups of coffee/mugs of beer, talking with someone on the mobile etc. But would anyone among us think of falling in love and then ensuring that one tends to get successful in it?
Yeah! I’m sure most of us probably end up seeing a good looking girl and some of us probably even manage to talk to the girl and feel happy about it. But I repeat how many of us would use the few hours of time with us at the airport to fall in love with the girl and then try to woo her successfully? Not many, right? Well let me then go on to tell you what Prayanam is all about. The plot if I were to call it is all about a trio of friends – Dhruv (Manchu Manoj), Janardhan and Tamim who have just completed a sightseeing trip to Malaysia and are now at Kuala Lumpur’s International airport to fly over to Singapore. At the same time you have the female lead Harika (Payal Ghosh a.k.a Harika) along with her friend Kalpika who are also at the airport to catch a flight to Hyderabad.
Harika is about to meet a prospective bride groom in Hyderabad and that’s the reason for her travel. In truly filmy style Dhruv falls in love with Harika – a classic case of love at first sight. But our hero is somewhat different because he is not content by merely falling in love; he wants to successfully woo her too. And he has just 2 hours to go about in this task. How he goes about doing this is what the movie is all about. Now I’m sure even without seeing the movie it would be clear to almost everyone that the plot is extremely simple and does not carry any meat on its own. In such a case it becomes very important for the director to be very effective in ensuring that the proceedings on screen keep the viewer enthused throughout the duration of the film.
It is here that C.Y shows he is in complete control. By ensuring that the humour quotient is fairly high throughout the movie, he manages to keep the proceedings interesting enough till the end. In fact though it is a romantic film, I personally did not find anything extraordinary about the romance in the movie as such. But it is in the comedy scenes that C.Y completely excels and lifts the movie to a large extent. Also what is remarkable about the movie is that the movie is more or less shot in just one location (except the few scenes at the start) i.e. in the airport and there are just 5-6 characters in the movie. Also commendable is the fact that the comedy is never over the top. Brahmanandam as Satyanaryana Swamy is hilarious and the scenes that he has with Janardhan are certainly innovative.
Also interestingly the characters of Kalpika and Tamim have been well sketched and the scenes involving them are entertaining again. Manchu Manoj seems to be having a blast in this movie (after Nenu Meeku Telusa which was reasonably noticed) and he will surely be talked about with this movie. Harika/Payal Ghosh does not have much scope but is fairly decent. Music by Mahesh Shankar is fairly adequate and does not distract (just 3 songs in the movie). The animation in the opening titles and the first song (YYW) is quite interesting. All in all this is one ‘Prayanam’ which can be safely undertaken. Not outstanding cinema, but definitely entertaining enough.
P.S- By now you would have understood why I mentioned I wish I knew the story of Prayanam when I was stuck at Bangalore’s HAL airport. But on hindsight even if I had liked some girl then, with all the chaos that prevailed there on that day I doubt if I would have been successful enough like Manchu Manoj in the movie .

P.S- Originally published in PFC.Check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/chandrasekhar-yeleti-undertakes-a-new-%e2%80%98prayanam%e2%80%99/

Kick- Telugu Cinema Gets Cheeky

Ok so what do we usually expect from a Telugu movie these days, especially when it stars a popular hero? That the hero will play to the gallery and work on his strengths. That the movie will contain the typical mass elements like action, around 6 songs which includes an item number, loud villains who are more or less caricatures, nearly all the well known comedians doing some kind of inane stuff in the name of comedy, one or more heroines trying to give their share of glamour quotient, some ‘punch’ dialogues powerful enough to disturb our ear drums and so on & so forth.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Kick- the latest Telugu release which has Ravi Teja and Ileana and also introduces the Tamil actor- Shaam to Telugu Cinema. So am I saying that this movie is a trendsetter and it breaks conventional traditions? Is this movie going to be looked upon as the movie to emulate in the years to come? Oh! No, not at all. Surendar Reddy the director has tried to experiment albeit a little within the limits of commercial Telugu potboilers keeping the image of Ravi Teja in mind and at the same time trying to avoid a lot of the mandatory requirements associated with such films.

So the plot is all about Kalyan (Ravi Teja ), an engineering graduate for whom getting a ‘kick’ out of anything is the sole mantra to keep him hooked to any activity. Hence he keeps moving in & out of jobs whenever he feels the job has no kick to offer him. He is supported in this by his father ( Sayaji Shinde ) who believes that he couldn’t do what his son is doing i.e unwind and take life easy. In a very entertaining encounter Kalyan comes across Naina (Ileana) and they start liking each other. One day when Naina gets to know that Kalyan has quit yet another job, she decides she’s had enough of him & decides to get out of the relationship.

And then Naina and her family move to Malaysia where one day she meets Kalyan Krishna (Shaam) a cop from Hyderabad who has come to Malaysia to meet her formally before getting engaged. After Naina tells Kalyan Krishna her story, he too opens up and says his biggest mission currently is to catch a guy who has been doing some high value robberies of late and playing a cat & mouse game with him. Apparently the thief is also now in Malaysia and that’s the main reason for Kalyan Krishna’s visit to Malaysia.

Of course the audience need not have to be smarter than a 5th grade student to know that the thief is none other than Kalyan. So how does the cat and mouse game carry on from there? Who gets Ileana in the end & what’s the reason behind Kalyan becoming a thief is what the rest of the movie is all about. The cinematography by Rasool Ellore and the music by Thaman.S have nothing special to contribute to the film. The movie has an ensemble supporting cast which includes Brahmanandam,Venu Madhav,Ali,Jayaprakash Reddy,Kota etc. And it’s certainly nice to see Jayaprakash Reddy and Kota in comic roles and not having any fiery dialogues as usual.

Brahmanandam raises a few laughs in what is a cakewalk of a role for him. Ali and Venu Madhav are o.k. Shaam is quite decent for his 1st Telugu movie and yes it’s nice to see Ileana after a long hiatus. We all know that the lady is not just pretty but can also act given a chance (remember Pokiri?). So after virtually seeing only Tamannah & Anushka this year it’s nice to see Ileana finally who does justice to her role whenever she appears on screen – of course towards the end she just disappears. Is it a matter of convenience, Surendar Reddy garu?

Coming to Ravi Teja or motor mouth as some of the media in A.P calls him, he seems to be relishing every bit of his time in the movie. He does get to do a lot of comedy which he is good at and also does well overall. But of course this is certainly not in the same league of some of his other films like Vikramarkudu or Dubai Seenu, but certainly not a bad attempt. Watch out for the scene where he does an imitation of Amitabh Bachchan- quite hilarious. All said and done it takes some time before one gets hooked to the movie, after which it’s a reasonably decent ride.

Talking about the usual stereotypes that I mentioned in the beginning of the article let me tell you all that Kick is a movie with popular stars but it has no item numbers, no loud villains ( in fact no villain at all ) , has no powerful ‘punch’ dialogues and nothing untoward in the name of glamour. Considering that the movie seems to have steered clear of these typical stereotypes associated with a big star Telugu movie and at the same time still decently entertains, the movie is to be credited. For the Telugu movie audience in A.P, with the scorching summer in full peak there is at least something to watch and cool themselves.

Originally published in PFC-check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/kick-telugu-cinema-gets-cheeky/