'Vaarasudu', produced jointly by Dil Raju and Sirish under Sri Venkateswara Creations and PVP Cinema, hit the screens today. Here is our review of the latest BO release. 

Story:

Sarathkumar plays the head of a business conglomerate. Srikanth and Kick Shaam play his first two sons, who look after his business empire. Thalapathy Vijay plays his third son, the youngest and the most rebellious. Vijay doesn't like to be in competition to become his father's legatee. He abandons his family and starts living an independent life, much to the dejection of his mother (played by Jayasudha). 

When Vijay comes on a visit to his home after seven years to attend his parents' 'Sashti Poorthi', he comes to know that differences between his brothers have gone out of hand. It's up to Vijay to resolve the differences by playing different cards. He must also contend with his father's ruthless business rival (played by Prakash Raj), among others. 

Analysis:

When the trailer for 'Vaarasudu' was released, everyone started drawing references to a lot of Telugu-language family films (read 'Attarintiki Daredi', 'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo', 'Srimantudu' and even 'Maharshi'). To be fair to director Vamsi Paidipally and his team of writers, the film is not heavily derived. The most important plot points don't overlap with any of the aforementioned films. 

But the fact remains that this film doesn't know how to be novel and realistic with respect to conflict resolution. Everything is convenient, especially the abduction scene. Even the fate that hangs over a key character feels so awkwardly convenient. What if there was no imminent or manifest crisis in their lives? Would they have patched up? Questions like these remain. 

Our filmmakers need to come out of the thinking that conflicts work better in the face of existential crisis. Also, financial ruin in most films is a feel-good crisis that eventually proves to be a blessing in disguise. 

Thalapathy Vijay steps out of his comfort zone a lot of times during the course of the film. His performance might look ordinary to the Telugu audience, but the Tamils seem to have bought into his change of gears. Rashmika Mandanna is turning out to be a better pair opposite different stars. Glamour-wise, though, she doesn't look that great in this film. 

Prakash Raj is routine (although better than how he was in 'Waltair Veerayya') and one hopes he somehow reinvents himself before it is too late. Prabhu, Yogi Babu, Sangeetha Krish, Nandini Rai, Ganesh Venkatraman are seen in different roles, some of which are stock types. Srikanth and 'Kick' Shaam, as the hero's brothers, sometimes add weight. The former is better than the latter. R Sarathkumar is cool, while Jayasudha is watchable. 

Of all the entertaining songs, 'Ranjithame' is the one song that sounds most universal. KS Chithra's 'Soul Of Vaarasudu' follows Thaman's 'Bheemla Nayak' echoes. Karthik Palani's cinematography makes a promise ahead of his biggest film, Prabhas' 'Adipurush'. Praveen KL's editing could have been better (the film's running time of 170 minutes is too much). The production design by the Sunil Babu-Vaishnavi Reddy duo is impressive.

The action choreography by the Ram-Laxman duo, Peter Hein and Dhilip Subbarayan is nothing special. Yes, this film doesn't belong to the action genre. But since a lot of important scenes culminate into action, the fights should have been way better. 

Verdict:

'Vaarasudu' needed better scenes in the second half. The entertainment quotient is also not pronounced. The performances are engaging, though.