Surya Vs Surya Review

As the film begins, Surya (Nikhil) is found taking an auto, seated in a half-sleep mode, moments after leaving his mobile in his palatial bungalow.  The maid says to his permanently optimistic mom (played by Madhu Bala), "Babu sayantram levagane.." and we are struck by the novelty the beginning apparently anticipates.  However, as it happens with most of the Telugu movies where the initial promise is thanklessly frittered away, here too, the film goes about treading the beaten path.  At one point, the gentically-challenged male lead, we realize to our horror, is nothing more than a communicationally challenged dude.  And this rich guy with a loving mom and a hate figure in the Sun God has just one task to be finished: express well and boldly.

It takes a funny goonda from the Old City to enlighten our timid communicator on the need to speak his heart to an insensitive girl who for all we know doesn't deserve his love.

How did the film start?  Where did the film end?

Where is the need to create a whole premise imbued in this or that novelty only to have your hero be lectured by an inconsequential Duffer that something he did not dare to do would have helped him make up with the girl (Mandu lo soda laga kalisipoyavaru)?

That the hodgepodge tries to become a quirky comedy with childlike or idiosyncratic characters like Ersam (a child-man, played by Tanikella Bharani), Aruna Sai (an auto driver, played by Satya Akkala) or the 'innovative' Piccha Fruit vendor (coined for the sake of alluding to an expletive) taking the front seat with our subconsciously self-resigned Surya taking down lessons from them or sharing his misery is not a consolation, not even in the very least.

Spinning a love story around a character suffering from a genetic disorder is a good idea, something that may tempt even a great writer in any period or culture.  However, reducing such an idea to a communicational challenge is ridiculous.  All the lectures are directed at the poor Surya, who has to struggle with his disorder.  Whereas it is the girl who actually deserves a lesson or two.  Maybe the girl's mom would have understood the need to chide her daughter, but she is too dead to rise to the occasion (on a lighter vein), leaving our one and only good lover to talk to her graveyard and place goggles as a mark of a forgettable one-sided conversation.

Then there is this mother sentiment here, that over-used "Mana youth" comedy there..

If having the hero clean the costliest toilet in his home in the backdrop of that notoriously lengthy Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham is a scene that falls flat, the climax scene involving Praveen (as the editor Lova Raj) and a host of others is perhaps the lowest common denominator.

The only noteworthy sentence the girl seems to utter throughout the film is to the hero, "The Sun knows his will power, but you don't."  In retrospect, though, this too seems to have no relevance to a story at whose top is a timid and ill-fated hero having the best riches.

The dialogues by Chandoo Mondeti lack substance.  The best part is the cinematography by the director himself (Karthik Gattamneni).

Nikhil shows his knack for nuanced acting here.  This one is easily his career best, especially given that he gets to do a difficult role here, bereft of all the Happy Days and such hangovers.

Tridha Chowdhary would have been apt to play the role of a teacher at the hero's night school.  She acts supercilious when she has to be seen a bit disappointed.  Tanikella Bharani falls flat as the child-man.  Satya Akkala is convincing.  Madhoo Bala gets a milk-and-water role.

Verdict: A film with a good premise but which descends into run--of-the-mill stuff before you know.

తెలుగు వెర్షన్ రివ్యూ