Story:
The basic plotline of the film is very simple with a revenge angle. Nandu (Jr NTR) flirts his way into Akarsha’s (Samantha) house to achieve a purpose. How this purpose is linked to his past Ammulu (Shruti Haasan), what is his past, is the basic storyline of the film.
Performances:
It is business as usual for Jr NTR in the film barring the first half where the director lives up to his words and presents the actor like never seen before. Jr NTR is at his glamorous best and does comedy in a more normal relax and chilled way. It works to an extent but once the freshness veers off things look tedious. In the second half the actor does what he does best, do an emotional role perfectly.
Samantha is wasted where as Shruti Haasan wastes the opportunity.
Ravi Shankar looks and acts the part he is given with right conviction. Mukesh Rishi, Ajay, Kota Srinivas Rao, Rao Ramesh etc does their usual act with predictable and boring ease.
There is not much comedy overall and there are not many comedians in the film as whatever comedy is present is present in the first half and is assigned to Jr NTR.
Positives:
Jr NTR in first half
Intro song and Jabilli
Negatives:
Flashback followed by climax
Excessive violence
Analysis:
Ramayya Vastavayya is a standard template driven film the likes of which have been made dime a dozen times in the past. The onus then was completely on director Harish Shankar to present this stale formula in a fresh manner. In the end one can say that the director has only partially succeeded in that endeavor.
Like his previous films he had put hero at the center stage of everything and tried to revolve the entire film around him. This time he presented Jr NTR in a complete new avatar but all that fun and freshness was very short lived. There were a couple of scenes that truly evoked the laughs but barring those his usual sharpness was missing in comic punches. Even if one gives all this, a pass, at some point the film had to take off to give audience the satisfaction of watching an engaging movie in the end. The new look fresh presentation is all fine but that alone doesn’t make for an entire film.
In the second half of the film the director tries to connect this newly presented Jr NTR to his older archive and this is where the film entirely crumbles. Writing is poor and predictable making the characters look like caricatures of such characters present in many countless past films. This irony where the director seems to be presenting everything with seriousness and yet only manages to create caricatures kills any excitement, even if predictable, that could have been possible. Only this could explain the over the top exaggerated fight sequences where despite such heaviness and violence, no rush is felt. To feel the difference let’s compare this to Simha, here despite the over the top-ness, one feels that rush of blood because the set up here is done without such irony. The director truly believes what he is doing rather than doing it academically studying the filmography of the lead hero.
Music as we have said in our review is underwhelming in terms of mass numbers and energy, something that is a mandatory in films of these types. Background score continues to be noisy and disappointing from Thaman.
Cinematography is good. Picturization of two songs Pandaga Chesuko and Jabilli Nuvve Cheppama is a delight, fan or otherwise. Editing is poor.
Bottom-line: Ramayya let down by director
Rating : 3/5
