Godava - Review

Senior director A Kodandarami Reddy, gave blockbusters and super hits, with Chiranjeevi. In fact, Chiranjeevi became a big star by acting in Kodandarami Reddy's movies and the turning point in the Mega Star's career, Khaidi was directed by none other than this director. However, Kodandarami Reddy did several mistakes while directing his own son.

Balu's (Vaibhav) parents (Chalapati Rao and Delhi Rajeswari) are lovers and they get married by falling in love with each other. However, they used to quarrel every moment. This creates an adverse impression in Balu that love marriage is a failure and arranged marriage is advisable. Balu always clashes with everyone, as he wants to do justice to the society. Anjali (Shraddha Arya) is the daughter of a millionaire (Sajayi Shinde) and is brought up by her grandparents (Jayaprakash Reddy and Annapurna). Anjali has a typical hobby of pinching the waist if it appears open, even as the opposite person is not known to her. Once Anjali pinches Balu and incidentally the latter finds Anjali in the college library. In a tit for tat process, Balu kisses her. The teasing starts like this. Once the college students go for a youth festival, where Anjali pinches another boy from some other college called Nataraj. Being a bad guy, Nataraj tries to make some advances and Balu saves Anjali. But she mistakes Balu and slaps him. Realising the mistake later, Anjali falls in love with Balu. But she finds that Balu has no positive thoughts about love. Anjali's father looks for an alliance and engagement takes place. With her friend's advice, Anjali starts moving friendly and in few days, Balu realises the value of love. However, Anjali's father tells some cock and bull stories to Balu and separates them. Will the love between Anjali and Balu turned fruitful. What happenes to the alliance brought by Anjali's father. Will Balu and Anjali unite or not? Answers to all these questions form part of climax.

PLUS: Hero and heroines' performance is okay. Vaibhav, though a novice, showed good histrionics and his body language is also good. He showed good ease in songs and action scenes. However, the director failed to project him as a hero and some spark is missing in the scenes. Heroine Shraddha Arya is gorgeous in modern outfits and gives a good skin show. She has not much scope to perform. Sayaji Shinde, Chalapati Rao and others are good in their respective characters. Music by Keeravani is good to listen but their choreography again turned a draw back. Dialogues by Paruchuri Brothers are good in parts. Especially, the dialogue on playing cards – 'Pe ante Pedavadu Ka ante Kalavaadu, Veeriddarini kalipede Peka', another dialogue by MS Narayana on Anjaneyudu and Naradudu equating them with those, who got reservation and, who was in waiting list are hilarious.

MINUS: Screenplay and direction are old fashioned. Director Kodandarami Reddy made several mistakes all through the film. Especially, the comedy track with Venumadhav has nothing to do with the story. Likewise, the villainy by a student leader at the youth festival was abruptly ended. The director killed the time in the entire first half for nothing and it was completely devoted to justify the title that the hero always quarrels with some one or the other. Brahmanandam's character is also not etched well. Characterisation of Sayaji Shinde could have been made further better. Choreography of songs is also not appealing and especially the locations were not impressive, though are fine to listen. Marthand has failed to show his editing capabilities in the absence of gripping story.

REMARKS: There is a saying in Telugu 'Perati Chettu Manduku Paniki Raadu'. It seems this would be applicable to our film industry too. None of the directors, who has introduced their children in their own direction, failed to give him a hit. Though the hero is good at looks and showed good ease in performance, in the absence of a gripping story and perfect screenplay, the hero's image floated like a balloon in vast air.

Cast: Vaibhav, Shraddha Arya, Chalapati Rao, Sajayi Shinde, Jayaprakash Reddy, Brahmanandam, AVS, MS Narayana, Nagababu, Venumadhav, Sunil, Raghubabu, Gundu Sudarshan, Jenny, Raghunatha Reddy, Chitram Sreenu, Kadambari Kiran, Kondavalasa Lakshmana Rao, Delhi Rajeshwari, Annapurna, Subhashini, Jujain Khan and others are in the cast.

Credit: Music – Manisharma, Dialogues – Paruchuri Brothers, Story – K Films Unit, Lyrics – Kandikonda, Ananta Sriram, Ramajogaiah Sastry, Camera – Dinesh, Editing – Marthand K Venkatesh, Action – Ganesh, Presents –A Sunil Reddy, Producer – A Bharati, Screenplay and direction – A Kodandarami Reddy.