It happens. Skillful directors sometimes step in the batter’s box, take a gigantic raise, and fall afterwards. Sukumar actually belongs to that wing. Title logo of Nannaku Prematho has ECG wave, which does not just indicate the Korsakoff syndrome a character suffers from in this film, but also refers to the zigzag graph of Sukku’s direction in his films. Good Arya & bad Arya 2; Delicious Jagadam & insipid 100% Love; Great 1 Nenokkadine, and now this one. Oh yeah, I reminisce my beautiful physics mam’s beautifully drawn wavelength diagram of crests & troughs from the high school days.
That’s fine, let’s talk about the film. It’s just a simple tit-for-tat revenge drama between the protagonist (Abhiram) and the antagonist (Krishnamurthy), who downturns Abhiram’s father (Subramanyam) into a bankrupt from the stage of India’s richest entrepreneur with his fraud & disloyalty. And how Abhi makes it vice versa is all about the story. True, you’ve seen this theme in multitude of films earlier, but how the filmmaker tackles it does really matter. Still it’s not there, somehow missing in its awfully long duration & dreadfully strange narration despite the screenplay & writing are actually a bit strong.
Writer Sukumar wanted to attract the viewer with some scientific jargon to call few varieties of butterflies, mice & scorpions. But it’s hard to make a tasty chicken salad of dialogues out of them & few slogan kind of lines like – “Change One Thing, Change Everything”, ” Zero Emotions, Zero Enemies”. The overdose of “Sherlock” inspiration right from the title sequence till the climax makes the film haywire most of the time. Those mediocre songs are the real speed breakers to this slow moving movie, BGM of DSP fails to connect in many of the scenes. Loved Vijay C. Chakravarthy’s DOP, specifically those aerial shots over the car chase in the exotic roadways and flyovers.
Jagapathi Babu, wah, the screen charmer of the film, with stunning salt & pepper look and clear-cut dialogue dialect, excelled in playing Krishnamurthy Koutilya. Jaggu has a habit of forgetting a thing while conversing with people. Even the director also forgot to better his complex script and left many loopholes. And needless to say about Tarak, a star plus actor, unleashes his acting finesse in an ultra stylish manner this time. All the Jaggu-Tarak confrontation scenes fully fill up with thrills. The pre-interval and climax are my only two favorite chunks of the movie where they both nail it in their own forms. Rakul Preet is beautiful, but her own dubbing is as awkward as those two preplanned meetings with Tarak. The other characters do not worth mention including Rajendra Prasad & Madhubala.
There’s a scene where Tarak plucks out Rakul’s hair strand to test her amount of estrogen levels. On such thinner line of plot, Sukku also tested his amount of intellectual chaotic levels. And there’s a physician who tells it’s medically ridiculous to find so. I too feel the same about the film. Like how spy-cam is hidden inside that butterfly painting worth 25 Cr, this 25th film of NTR Jr. feels less of emotional strength concealed inside more of logical mess.
The more you think about Nannaku Prematho, the less sense it makes. So, if you want to disburse your emotion by thinking too much after watching the film like Tarak, there may be a chance to conserve the disappointment as well how he does in the end until you watch another good film.
My Rating (Keeping at that corner with the inspiration of ‘Butterfly Effect’):
……..🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 42°/100°
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝……..(In Sukumar’s Style)
II/V. I mean “2 out of 5”
a2z డ్రీమ్స్ 