Visakha Express - Review

Dr Raja (Rajiv Kanakala) is an angry young man. He gets irritated with the smallest of things. He is constantly pestered by his father Mohan Rao (Kota Srinivasa Rao) - a drunkard. Despite the way his father pesters him, he loves his father more than anything in the whole world. Dr Raja falls in love with a girl ,Suchitra (Preeti Jhangiani). Suchitra reciprocates his love for her. Suchitra invites him to her house to speak to her father. Raja comes to know, before he can make it to her house, that Suchitra has already told her father everything about him.

When Suchitra's father advises Raja to meet a psychiatrist to control his anger, he gets offended. He also gets irritated when he talks about his father and his drinking habit. In the process, Raja loses his temper and beats up Suchitra's father. That results in the end of his love with Suchitra.

Raja meets Ravivarma (Allari Naresh) on the Visakha Express. On coming to know that Raja is being troubled by his father, Ravivarma decides to kill his father. When Raja is inebriated, Ravivarma makes him promise that he will kill his wife. Ravivarma then attempts to kill Mohan Rao in an accident. Mohan Rao survives and lands up in a hospital. When in the hospital, Ravivarma changes the medicine and innocently Raja gives the injection killing his father with his own hands.

It happens to be so that in the same accident, the DGP's daughter gets killed. The police allege that Raja is the cause of the accident and so they get on his trail. Raja killed his father to prevent the truth from getting out that he was behind the accident. Ravivarma comes in to save day and confess that it was he and not Raja who caused the accident. He says that he did it so that Raja would be free of his fathers harassment.

In return, he demands that Raja return the favour and kill his wife. The twist in the tale is that his wife is Suchitra, the girl whom Raja loved a long time ago. Ravivarma tells him he is troubled by the hostility between Suchitra and him which is why he wants her dead. Raja decides not to kill Suchitra and surrender to the police. Taking note that Raja won't keep his end of the deal, he decides to do the act himself before which the police kill him.

Plus Points:

Naresh's acting as a psycho is superb. He has done complete justice to his role. His character has two shades. Heplays on one hand a well mannered man and on the other hand a disturbed man. Besides these two conflicting shades to his character in the film, his good comedy timing is excellent. Rajiv Kanakala too acts well in the film as someone who gets angry for no reason at all. His acting and body language during the scenes where he is blackmailed is superb. Preeti Jhangiani's role in the film is good. Sindhu Tulani appears in just one scene.

Kota Srinivasa Rao, though appeared in only a couple of scenes, has done complete justice to his role as well. It was the screenplay, courtesy Chandrasekhar Yeleti, that gives the film its magic touch. Though the director maintained the suspense in the film for a long time, the revelation of the animosity against Naresh, eased the tension among the audiences.

Minus Points:

The director overlooked the commercial aspects of the film. But for a romantic song and an item song, there is nothing to attract the masses. Likewise, the comedy track between Vijayaranga Raja and Ali failed to click well. Moreover, the director gave an abrupt ending to Ali's character and there is no mention about it at any stage even before the climax.

The investigation by the police was not put in a proper format, as Ali goes in a correct way but he fumbles for the sake of comedy. The revelation of the truth by Vijayaranga Raja in the climax was not established earlier in the name of investigation.

Conclusion:

It was not the case like earlier days that the audiences would watch anything that was shown on the screen. These days, the audiences are looking for various aspects - story, comedy, action, direction and screenplay besides good music. A successful director should coordinate everything and should ensure that all these elements are in place. It appears giving a suspense thriller was the only thing that Varaa Mullapudi had in mind.

Cast: Rajiv Kanakala, Allari Naresh, Preeti Jhangiani, Sindhu Tulani, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Vijayaranga Raju, Ali, Melkote, Narsing Yadav, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Pardhasarathi, Gulmi and others.

Credits: Camera – PKH Das, Editing – Ravindrababu, Dialogues – Harshavardhan, Lyrics – Jonnavittula, Sahiti, Ananta Sriram, Music – Vijay Kurakula, Action – Ram-Lakshman, Chandrasekhar and Art – V Narayana Rao, Executive producer – SP Chandra, Screenplay – Chandrasekhar Yeleti, Presents – SS Rajamouli, Producer – P Tulasi Gopal, Story and direction – Varaa Mullapudi

Banner: Markwell Entertainments

Released on: February 8, 2008

Vishaka Express Trailer