Kick - Review - It is just a half-kick

Surender Reddy proved himself as a director with commitment with his debut film Athanokkade". Not only for Surender Reddy, the film also gave the much needed break to Kalyanram. However, his next two films were proved average flicks. With two successive flops, Surender Reddy could not get any other offer for quite long time. In order to prove himself, he once again prepared a typical subject and chose Ravi Teja as his hero. RR Movie Makers, who gave many hits in recent past, produced the movie. Though the first half of the film appeared boring by the time of intermission, it picks up momentum suddenly and the entire second half turns out to be a nail-baiting experience for the audiences.

Nayana (Ileana) is a chivalrous girl. She comes across Kalyan (Ravi Tteja), a typical boy, who always looks for a kick in everything. He doesn"t want to happen something as it is and he looks for a kick for achieving something. He could not work in any particular job for long as he feels that the kick is missing after working for some months or days. Nayana"s sister (Ashika) tells her that she is in love with Kalyan. As Nayana knows very well about Kalyan, she tries to spoil the alliance and Kalyan falls in love with Nayana.

However, neither Kalyan nor Nayana admits that they are in love with the other and both of them pretend that one hates another but they have liking against each other. Once, Nayana tells Kalyan that she likes him and they become good friends. Following Nayana"s suggestion to settle in one job, Kalyan tells her that she is working in a software firm, though he resigns it. One fine day, Nayana comes to know that Kalyan is lying. This irks Nayana and she chides him like anything. She tells Kalyan that she loves him and at the same time hates him. After this episode, Nayana leaves for Malaysia, where her parents are staying. One day, Nayana"s father (Benarjee) brings an alliance, and the boy Kalyanram (Shyam) is a sincere police officer in India. Nayana"s father arranges the encounter in a local train and Nayana reveals all her friendship and love story with Kalyan, and the latter gets very impressed and agrees to marry her.

In fact, Kalyanram reaches Malaysia in search of a thief, who robbed bigwigs worth crores of rupees. Kalyanram realizes that the thief is very intelligent and is doing everything in a planned manner. Kalyanram learns that Kalyan reached Malaysia with the hint given by the latter. After reaching Malaysia, Kalyan calls Kalyanram and challenges him that he is going to rob huge money, which is in fact unaccounted and is being invested in a foreign firm. After robbing that money, again he challenges that he is going to rob huge party fund, which is about to be circulated during elections and successfully completes the same. At this juncture, Kalyan"s father reveals the flashback that his son is doing all those robberies to help hapless children, who are suffering from diseases, which need lakhs of rupees for surgeries and are left by their parents in an orphanage. In the climax, there is another twist that the defense minister appoints Kalyan in place of Kalyanram to nab the thief. By that time, Kalyan completes his mission and helps several destitute children.

PLUS: Though the hero of the film is Ravi Teja, the director has given adequate footage and equal importance to newcomer Shyam. The latter too has given the best performance on par with Ravi Teja and at times, he reminds the audiences Subbaraju. In fact, Shyam is adequate in the role as a police officer. He has done his character with style and perfection. Ravi Teja as usual is quite jovial and maintained good comedy timing. Camera handled by Rasool Ellore is perfect to the core. He is able to shoot the chase scenes perfectly and capture the beauty of several foreign locales with his camera. He is able to make use of the Digital Intermediate Technology in a couple of song sequences. Music by newcomer S Thomas is okay.

MINUS: The first half of the film is nagging and in order to establish the hero"s character and to explain his attitude, the love track between the hero and heroine is stretched beyond limits testing the patience of audiences. Especially, Ileana has failed as heroine opposite Ravi Teja. Though she has tried to provide entertainment, she is unable to show it with her body language. The audiences, who used to look her only for glamour, could not receive her in a typical comedy heroine role. The director could not make use of senior artistes like Sayaji Shinde, Jayaprakash Reddy, Kota Srinivasa Rao and Chalapati Rao, as they just come and go in many scenes. The writers could not pen good comedy track and the comedy by Brahmanandam has turned stale.

REMARKS: The audiences, who had high expectations on the film in the wake of no notable hits in the recent past, once again feel disappointed with this film. Though the second half is gripping, the staggered and stretched first half spoils the film as a whole and makes the film an average flick. However, with no good film of senior and seasoned artistes to compete, the film could run well because of the comedy and the nice action part in the second half. Director Surender Reddy has once again tried to use flashback narration for this film too.

Cast: Ravi Teja, Ileana, Ashika, Shyam, Brahmanandam, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Venumadhav, Ali, Sayaji Shinde, Chalapati Rao, Surya, Jayaprakash Reddy, LB Sriram, Pruthvi, Duvvasi Mohan, Nalini, Prabha and others

Credits: Story – Vakkantam Vamsi, Dialogues – Abburi Ravi, Camera – Rasool Ellore, Action – Vijay, Lyrics – Sitarama Sastry, Music – S Thomas, Art – Narayana Reddy, Presents – K Achireddy, Producer – Venkat, Screenplay and direction – Surender Reddy.

Banner: RR Movie Makers

Released on: May 8, 2009