Cast: Venkatesh, Srikanth, Nagababu, Taapsee, MS Narayana, Jayaprakash Reddy, Geetha, Aditya Pancholi, Subbaraju, Sayaji Shinde and othersMusic: S S Thaman
Dialogues: Kona Venkat, Meher Ramesh
Story-Screenplay -Direction: Meher Ramesh
Producers: Paruchuri Prasad
Release date: 26th April 2013
It has been long time since Venkatesh scored a hit with a proper commercial entertainer. Also director Meher Ramesh is determined to give a blockbuster this time after delivering all commercial failures. Let us see what this combination has done with ‘Shadow’
The CONTENT
Way back in 1992, Raghuram (Nagababu), an undercover journalist, works as an associate of mafia don Nana (Aditya Pancholi) and prepares a file that contains all the data of Nana’s activities including 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts plan. He asks his brother-in-law (Surya) to handover that file to a magazine editor CP (Sayaji Shinde). But finally the file lands up at Nana’s den and he in turn sends goons to eliminate Raghuram and the evidences he might have saved at his home. Nana arrives at the scene to kill Raghuram, when his brothers catch hold of Raghuram. However before the attack has begun, Rajaram tells his son Rajaram to take care of mother (Geetha) and sister. While escaping, both mother and sister dies in bomb blast and Rajaram decides to seek vengeance against Nana and his gang. Cut to 2012, a grown up Rajaram (Venkatesh) starts eliminating Nana’s men one by one, while sincere police officer Pratap (Srikanth) also tries to catch those goons. The story is about how Rajaram kills everyone and how Srikanth is also related to him.
The EFFORT :
On-Screen:
Venkatesh is as usual natural in his performance in this stylish role of ‘Shadow’. In action scenes he is perfect in physique and delivers needed strength. At the same time his other side of making comedy too clicked quite well. His comic sequence as a memory-loss patient is hilarious.
Srikanth too delivers a serious performance in the role of a sincere IPS officer Pratap. All the time, he maintains that police discipline and fits the bill perfectly.
But it is MS Narayana who sets the theatre crackling and bursting with laughs in the role of Psycho Sreenu aka Donga Srinivasa Rao, Psychologist. His comic timing through imitation of other star heroes when delivering one-liner dialogues is quite exciting.
Taapsee is as usual glamorous and she has nothing to do with her role but in songs she shows her potential. Her glamour gives superb relief for the slow songs composed by Thaman.
Krishna Bhagawan, Srinivas Reddy and Nalla Rajesh succeeded in delivering entertainment, while Subbaraju, Madhurima and Dharmavapu got some meagre roles.
Off-Screen:
Meher Ramesh is always successful when delivering stylish looks and needed comedy. This time too he made ‘Shadow’ look quite interesting with his superb visuals. He is able to make some gripping screenplay this time but not an exciting one. For the content that is there on paper, Meher’s direction has done justice.
Thaman once again proved that he is king of re-recording and his background score holds value in delivering this suave flick. But his songs are not up to the mark and except title song and Naughty girl song, rest are enjoyable but we cannot remember after stepping out of theatres. Thaman should be blamed for this.
All other technicians did their part to compliment Meher Ramesh’s work.
The PLUSES:
· Venky’s looks and action sequences
· Imitation of Gabbarsingh Antyakshari scene
· MS Narayana as Psycho Seenu
· Taapsee’s glamour in songs
The MINUSES:
· Formulaic old story with no twists and turns
· Routine screenplay and uninteresting dialogues
BREAKDOWN:
Meher Ramesh is still tumbling to deliver a decent commercial entertainer. His earlier movies got huge and interesting storylines but lacked punch. This time he got punch, but the story lacked freshness. A remix of movies like Dookudu, Baadshah and other Telugu flicks is a boring juice to drink. Of course that might have happened due to writer Kona Venkat who happens to be the writer of all these flicks. All the time story is predictable as to what happens next but Meher’s stylish way of executing scenes will hook you to seats. Most of the time characters come and go, but as a whole they are not appealing as a story because of poor screenplay. Some interesting screenplay touches and avoiding silly loopholes would have made this routine movie look fascinating.
However Meher has decided to induce comedy well into the movie whenever there is a boring moment. We have to say that he succeeded quite well in delivering all required commercial elements though graph is little bit shaky at times. He made full use of MS Narayana and Venky to deliver comic sequences, while he made sure that Taapsee looks like a glamour-doll all the time to entertain frontbenchers. But he failed to bring intensity in Venky’s character and his dialogues evoked whistles only at places. Still Meher has to improvise his story a lot if he wants to settle here as master film maker.
If the movie is not made with some escalated and over-shot budgets, then it will give producers some profits and audience a value for their money. And Meher Ramesh should take Venky’s bike used in the film and start searching for a new producer!
The FINISHING Line: Only if you have free time, watch ‘Shadow’
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