Snehitudu - Movie Review

Popular director Shankar's Snehitudu, a dubbed version of Tamil film Nanban and a remake of Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots, has hit the screens. The movie stars Vijay, Jeeva, Srikanth, Ileana and Sathyaraj in the key roles. Read on for the full review.

Panchabhatla Sarangapani aka Pani (Vijay), Venkata Ramakrishna (Srikanth) and Sanakkayala Ravi (Jeeva) join an engineering college and three turn roommates. Being roommates, friendship blossoms between them and made them very close to each other. Surprisingly, three have different personalities and their talents too are different. Pani gives more importance to knowledge than marks. He always argues that mere marks won"t fetch anything in life but one should improve knowledge. Venkat loves wildlife photography. However, he is forced to study engineering at the behest of his parents. Ravi"s case is very different. He had to support his family and for that he needs a good job, as they live in utter poverty. He is very timid and studies day and night as his only goal is to get a good job.

Pani always used to encourage his friends not to succumb to pressures of elders but achieve what they wanted to achieve in his life. This returns in a conflict with his college principal Virupaksha Sundaram aka Virus (Sathyaraj) and Pani used to cross the path time and again. At this juncture, Pani meets Virus" only daughter Ria (Ileana) at a party. Soon, the accidental meeting turns love between Pani and Ria. Unable to bear the excesses of Pani, Virus desperately decides to expel not only Pani but also his two friends. Did Virus succeed in his attempts? What happened to the goals of the friends? Did the love between Pani and Ria turned fruitful? Answers to all these questions can be found in the climax.

Performance:
Srikanth and Jeeva have done their jobs very well. Jeeva lived in the character as a vulnerable and timid student who is in desperate need of job. Ileana too is the right choice by the director. Especially, her sizzling belly dance with Vijay draws immediate applause from the whole audiences. The only drawback of the film is Vijay. Though he is perfect choice for Tamil audiences, in the Telugu dubbed version, he looks pale and appeared as if he sleepwalked into the character and left. Satyaraj has also done complete justice to the character of Virus and Satyam is ditto for Silencer character. Sunil"s dubbing gave life to that character.

Technical:
Shankar has prepared a perfect script for the film and this has helped the film a lot. The scenes will have a strong impression in the hearts of audiences because of the script and director"s ability to grab performance from the artistes. Another strong point in the film is that, it had different elements like sentiment, drama, and romance besides good comedy. Some of the scenes are very moving and the director should be commended for taking such scenes in a perfect way. The scene of Venkat talking to his parents really moves the audiences. The cinematographer has done a decent job and editing is also nice. Music by Harris Jayaraj is okay. Dialogues penned by Abburi Ravi are adequate as most scenes have a perfect depth and seriousness or jovial mood because of his inking the perfect way of conversations.

Remarks:
The drawback of the film is that the director chose to make the film a Xerox version of the original rather than trying to bring out the film in his own way. Probably, he might have feared that the audiences won"t accept the movie in any other form. Those, who saw the original Hindi version, would get yawning while watching the film, as they are seeing the same kind of scenes in this film too. If you have not watched 3 Idiots, Shankar"s script will keep you to sit tight in the chair all through the film.

Cast: Vijay, Ileana, Jeeva, Srikanth, Sathyaraj, Sathyan, SJ Surya, Anuya Bhagvath, Raghava and others
Credits: Story – Abhijat Joshi; Dialogues – Abburi Ravi; Cinematography: Manoj Paramahamsa; Editing – Anthony; Music – Harris Jayaraj; Script, Screenplay and Direction – Shankar; Producer – Dil Raju
Released on: January 26, 2012