<i>Roommates</i> - Review

Monday, August 14, 2006
Story:
Though the earlier two films left a bad experience, latest flick in his directorial venture Roommates has some freshness in it. AVS showed his prowess as director and succeeded in putting all his efforts in a right way. Roommates have several threads including love, crime, music and entertainment. The director picked up right artistes for all the four youngster characters. Surprisingly, Navneet Kaur, who played glam doll roles so far and at times shook legs as an 'item song' girl, gave best of her performance in the heroine role. The director maintained good suspense all through the film.

Four youngsters who were fond of music hail from a remote village. Ramakrishna (Allari Naresh) is the son of a temple priest, Sekhar (Baladitya) is an orphan brought up by his maternal uncle, Seshu (Srinivasa Reddy), who was brought up by his grandmother and Bunty (Suman Setty) is the son of a toddy-tapper. Ramakrishna is a flutist; Sekhar plays mridangam/drums, Bunty fond of playing keyboard while Seshu is a good guitarist.

After getting ditched by Narasimha, who promises them to send to Dubai after swindling Rs 2 lakh from each of the family, the four decide to end their lives. However, fate decides the other way and they survive only to meet a young girl Pallavi (Navneet Kaur), an event manager. They decide to prove themselves but could not even get a job. Once they play music and famous singer SP Balasubrahmanyam accidentally listen it and decides to promote them. Ramakrishna and Pallavi fall in love with each other. When they were about to give their first performance on the stage, their life takes a twist with the death of Narasimha and they get fixed in a murder case.

Jailer Bhargava (Nazar) helps them to escape from the jail. The Home Minister (Nagababu) appoints a special officer called Sarat Chandra (Naresh) to investigate the jail-escape incident. Bhargava cleverly places all the four youths in the house of Sarat Chandra and later advises them to meet one retired High Court Judge (Subbaraya Sharma), who is preparing a file on the murder of Narasimham and similar murders that occurred earlier. But by the time, the four youths go to the judge's house, he remains in a pool of blood and the murder charge again falls on them. Sarat Chandra, however, traces them in the house of Pallavi. He manages to arrange the music concert of these 'Roommates', with the help of SP Balasubrahmanyam and the Home Minister. After the end of the concert, Sarat Chandra proves that the four are innocent and the real culprit is none other than Jailer Bhargava. The judge who gets saved by Sarat Chandra while battling for life declares that Bhargava is suffering from a mental ailment, which provoked him to kill people. With this the film ends on a happy note.

Analysis:
All the four youths, Naresh, Baladitya, Srinivasa Reddy and Suman Setty did extremely well and perfectly fitted in their respective characters. Navneet Kaur looked like the girl to the next door with no revealing dresses and looked homely. The entire first half of the film ran very smooth. However the second half is a little tardy. However, the director maintained good entertaining values all through the film. The audiences continue to believe that Jeeva who played the house-owner role is the killer as he gives a hint that he was also ditched by the same Narasimha and also suspect something fishy with regard to Nazar character. AVS ably maintained good suspense all through the film.

Technical Dept:
Cinematography by Srinivasa Reddy and editing by Nagireddy are up to the mark. Another speciality of the film is that it is the 100th film for music director Mani Sharma and all the songs, background score are simply perfect and superb, true to his title Swara Brahma. The highlight of the film is the music bit before the interval bang, where SP Balasubrahmanyam pats the four youth. Visu Films' productions values are good. Though the film may not attract repeat audiences, it is a film worth watching once.

Cast: Allari Naresh, Baladitya, Srinivasa Reddy, Suman Setty, Navneet Kaur, Nazar, Naresh, SP Balasubrahmanyam, Nagababu, Narayana Rao, Jeeva, Raghubabu, Ali, Gundu Hanumantha Rao, Narsing Yadav, AVS, Kadambari Kirankumar, LB Sriram, Jr Relangi, Annapurna, Sana, Pavala Shyamala and others.

Credits:
Cinematography - V Srinivasa Reddy, Editing - V Nagireddy, Script - Krishneswara Rao, Thyagaraju, Music - Manisharma, Presents - CC Reddy, Producer - Y Sonia Reddy, Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Direction - AVS.

Banner: Visu Films Pvt Ltd.
Released on: August 11, 2006

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