Saleem (Dummu Reputadu)- Review

Sri Lakshmi Prasanna Pictures had a great history. It has produced several successful and great films. This is the 50th film on the banner and producer Mohan Babu had given an opportunity to YVS Choudary, who was a successful director, though he tasted a flop recently with Okka Magadu. He prepared a love story with a touch of faction and mafia. However, once again the director bitten the dust with insipid screenplay. He largely depended on the oomph of the heroine, with songs full of English lyrics ignoring the Telugu flavour and cacophony music.

There is a village head called Singamanaidu (Napoleon) and he had enmity with his sister"s brother-in-law (Mukhesh Rushi). Fearing attack, Singamanaidu keeps his daughter Satya (Ileana) away in London and brings her up. She returns after 14 years and when the enemy"s men try to kidnap her, Munna Saleem (Vishnu) saves her. He wins over the hearts of Satya"s family members. Munna loses his heart to Satya. Singamanaidu looks for an alliance to Satya and Munna learns that the bridegroom (Bharat Reddy) and his father (Benarjee) were crooks and kills them. Later, Singamanaidu decides to marry Satya to Munna as he only could look after her welfare.

But Satya was already in love with Krish (Venkat) and she utilizes Munna as her pawn and elopes with Krish. In this process, Krish"s men shoot Munna. Somehow, Munna gets rescued and leaves for London in search of Satya. Hereafter lies the twist in the film.

PLUS:
The glamour of Ileana and the choreography of all the songs with over exposure of the heroine"s oomph to attract the mass audiences is the only plus point in the film. YVS Chodary"s passion to imitate Raghavendra Rao in highlighting the heroine"s glamour resulted in overexposure and proved absurd. No doubt, Vishnu picked up a lot and is looking smart with a lean personality. Though he shed a lot of weight, he continued to maintain some glow in his face besides the young charisma. Dances are also impressive. But he needs to improve his dialogue modulation a little further. Camera work by Ramprasad is impressive as he shot the chases and action scenes well. His camera eye did not turn away from the belly button and waist of the heroine in all the songs.

MINUS:
The poor and unimpressive narration tested the patience of the audiences. He tried to imitate movies like Murari, Athadu and Ninne Pelladatha to highlight the family relations but there is no comparison with them as they were picturised far better than this film. Likewise, there are a lot of action scenes in the film, which has lots of wirework. All the action scenes were far from reality and were truly cinematic. Though Vishnu played well, their picturisation brings laugh among audiences. Mohan Babu should have avoided playing the role. The director shouldn"t have used such a senior artiste to demean a female teacher that way. It is absurd to look at the oomph of a woman teacher who came to teach him. Of course, she (Kaveri Jha) was meant to attract him as per the story. Dialogues in the film lacked punch and the audiences who look for impressive dialogues from a hero like Mohan Babu would definitely feel disappointed. Even the comedy track was picturised in poor taste.

REMARKS:
The storyline of the film was about love, joint family and revenge. But YVS Choudhary fails to build the correct tempo and mould the film interesting. It is just surprising how he brought out a great film like Devadasu. Despite good production values and lavish spending by the banner, the film ends on a dull and drab note.

Cast: Vishnu, Ileana, Mohan Babu, Kaveri Jha, Venkat, Giribabu, Napoleon, Ali, Tanikella Bharani, Jayaprakash Reddy, Jeeva, Benarjee, Raghubabu, Mukhesh Rushi, Dr Bharat Reddy Telangana Sakuntala, Pragati, Hema, Ramyasri, Master Bharat and others

Credits: Music – Sandeep Chouta, Art – Ananda Sai, Script assistance – Gopi-Mohan and BVS Ravi, Dialogues – Chintapalli Ramana, Lyrics – Chandrabose, Camera – C Ramprasad, Editing – Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao, Action – Vijay, Story, screenplay and direction – YVS Choudary.

Banner: Sri Lakshmi Prasanna Pictures and Big Pictures