Katha Screenplay Darsakatvam Appalaraju – Review

As one of the dialogues in the film indicates that Varma is a stupid director, the film brought by Ram Gopal Varma has made a mockery of film-making by keeping dozens of characters in the film only to display the problems that would be faced by debutant directors and how different circumstances change a film, which was supposed to have delicate emotions and tragedy climax, come out as a comedy entertainer. Those who had intimacy and touch with the film industry only could understand the film, but not the regular audiences. It ends up as a boring and nagging film, which makes the audiences curse the director for bringing out a film in a very poor way.

Appalaraju (Sunil) is a film lover and he watches films regularly at Rambha Theatre in Amalapuram in a critical way and wonders why the directors are bringing out such films and his life ambition is to direct a film better than all the established directors. He leaves for Hyderabad and stays in his friend"s (Satyam Rajesh) house, with his script titled 'Nayaki". His friend takes him to an audio release function, where he meets a producer called Rakhee (Raghubabu). He and his creative head Pushpanand (Harshavardhan) read the script and suggest some changes. But Appalaraju does not agree to change even a single word in it. Then Rakhee suggests Appalaraju to convince the top heroine of the film industry Kanishka (Sakshi Gulati) as her nod would help them fetch financiers.

Somehow, Appalaraju meets the heroine and narrates the story and she agrees to do the film. Then Rakhee, Pushpanand and Appalaraju meet Data Base (Krishna Bhagawan) to finance their film. He wants one of the top hero Babu Garu (Adarsh) to rope in the lead role so that the crazy combination would help achieve a hit. Appalaraju pleads with Kanishka to help her and she convinces Babugaru and Data Base agrees to invest on the film. However, due to some differences with Kanishka, Babugaru quits the project and Data Base refuses to finance the film. Now, Rakhee and Appalaraju meet Srisailam Anna (Brahmanandam), who is basically a rowdy sheeter to finance the film. He agrees to finance the film with a condition that lyrics penned by him should only be used in it. Luck again favours Appalaraju as Kanishka convinces another top hero KT (Ajay) to pair up with her. Rahman Sharma (Ali) scores tunes for the lyrics penned by Srisailam Anna and in order to attract the mass audiences, the hero KT insists on keeping an item number in the film. With no option left, Appalaraju agrees to it. The shooting of the film completes and before the release of the film, the producer invites the media to write reviews in their favour.

However, Babugaru turns the tables and the makes the entire media goes against the film. Now, the producers start searching for a distributor and meet Ontikannu Gavarraju (Kota Srinivasa Rao), but he wants the promos in a different manner with lots of exposure of heroine and the hero in an attractive manner. But Appalaraju refuses to change the promos. Gavarraju refuses to distribute the film first but changes his mind after meeting Babugaru and agrees to take distribution rights across the state. In the last minutes, Gavarraju cheats the producer and refuses to release the film. Again, Rakhee and Appalaraju meet Database to distribute the film and he accepts their proposal. KT insists that the film should be released on the same day when Babugaru"s film 'Pranam Teesta" is releasing during Sankranti season. With all the options closed, Babugaru wants to stop the release of the film at any cost. Y Venkat, a director, gives an idea to burn the negatives of the film. Mistakenly they burn another film"s negative and Nayaki will have smooth release and becomes a big hit to the surprise of Appalaraju. 'Nayaki" bags awards for all the departments too. The biggest surprise is that Appalaraju wants to bring out a tragedy and heart-touching film, but he bags an award for a comedy entertainer.

Performance: Sunil has given a very good performance all through the film. He has worked very hard and showed perfect emotions of a debutant director. In fact, it is the only character which appears to be a bit convincing. Sakshi Gulati has filled the glamour slot and she has not big role to play but only appears in a few scenes related to film-making and shakes legs in a song. Swati has played the role of an assistant director and a good friend of the hero. Her role evokes some laughter. Other artistes have done justice to their roles, but are not properly utilised by the director. Brahmanandam"s character has the similarities of 'Money" to some extent, but he has done a little over action in the movie.

Technical: Music by Koti is the only department, which has done a convincing job. All the songs, which have been penned with satires on the film industry, have worked out well, though their picturisation is not so convincing. Sunil appears to be imitating Chiranjeevi in most of the songs, where he dances. None of the songs is choreographed well. Camera work is okay. The script, screenplay and the direction by a senior and eminent director like Ram Gopal Varma is very poor. Though the central theme of the film is to explain the travails faced by a debutant director and the problems being faced by the producers in film-making, it is not properly presented. Especially, the huge star cast, confuses the audiences. As is already said, only those who were in touch with film-making could understand and digest the film, the normal audiences would grope in dark to understand what is happening on the screen.

Remarks: There was a rumour that Sunil is worrying about his future after the release of the film, but itis proved wrong as none of the scenes would hurt the feelings of any of the film personalities. The director has failed to establish as to why and how the film is expected to be directed by Appalaraju, with a tragic story turned out a comedy entertainer.

Don"t waste your time by going to the theatre and watch the film as you just could not bear the lengthy, nagging and stretched scenes of the film without proper establishment of any of the characters.

Cast: Sunil, Sakshi Gulati, Swati, Brahmanandam, Raghubabu, Ajay, Harshavardhan, Tanikella Bharani, Venumadhav, Ali, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Raja Ravindra, Uttej, Satyam Rajesh, Adarsh and others.

Credits: Camera – Sudhakar Yekkanti, Editing – Praveen Pudi, Art – Krishnamaya, Dance – Ganesh, Swami, Dialogues – Dinesh, Lyrics – Kaluva Sai, Ram Gopal Varma, Presents - Nandita Koneru, Producer – Kirankumar Koneru,

Banner: Shreya Productions

Released on: February 18, 2010