KOTHA BANGARU LOKAM (2008) Telugu Movie Review By Kalcha

Audience Rating For KOTHA BANGARU LOKAM

(7 votes, average: 7 out of 10)
 Loading ...

FILM: Kotha Bangaru Lokam
LANGUAGE: Telugu
RELEASE DATE: 09-10-2008
STAR CAST: Varun Sandesh, Swetha Prasad, Prakash Raj, Jaya Sudha, Ahuti Prasad, Brahmanandam, Rao Ramesh
CHOREOGRAPHY: Sobhi Paulraj, Pradeep Anthony, Baba Bhaskar
LYRICS: Sirivennela Seetha Rama Sastry, Anant Sriram, Srikanth Addala
SINGERS: Krishna Chaitanya, Aditya, Siddhartha, Kranthi, Sasi Kiran, Karthik, Mickey J Meyer, Swetha Prasad, Naresh Iyer, Kalyani, S P Bala Subrahmanyam
MUSIC: Mickey J Meyer
EDITOR: Marthand K Venkatesh
STUNTS: Sayeed
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Chota K Naidu
ART: A S Prakash
STORY, DIALOGUES, SCREENPLAY & DIRECTION: Srikanth Addala
PRODUCER: Dil Raju
BANNER: Sri Venkateswara Creations

KOTHA BANGARU LOKAM is being revered as “One Of The Best In Years”… as the “Movie Of The Year”… and a lot many things in the larger media including 100s of websites which may or may not end up as just Cacophony. I got intrigued and thought to test the mettle of the movie.

• SWETHA PRASAD is undoubtedly one of the best actresses, Indian Cinema has and is gonna see. She is not a typical glamour oozing piece of junk that makes up most of the so-called-leading-heroines of Indian Cinema today. She is a multi-talented genius that amply showcased her acting brilliance in IQBAL in Hindi. The first thing that KOTHA BANGARU LOKAM has to offer is the brilliant song “Nenani Neevani” sung by Swetha herself to take us into the valleys of fairies that sing to us in our beautiful dreams. (Sorry guys n gals, there has been a huge mix up. It seems that the singer and actress are 2 different persons). Then she dazzles us with her brilliant portrayal of the female protagonist in the movie. She is subtle and yet cinematic, where it is required, to make this movie a commercial success. She is funny and yet doesn’t allow us to take her for granted. All in all, I can just hope that Indian Cinema makes the best use of her talent. But I have to say that she desperately needed better casual costumes in the movie. Regular costumes are okay but the costumes she wears while in study hours or at home or in hostel make her look bulky.
• Song “Nenani Neevani” composed brilliantly by MICKEY J MEYER, written by SIRIVENNELA SEETHA RAMA SASTRY and finally sung by SWETHA PRASAD (singer)… single-handedly elevates this movie a few notches up.
• DIALOGUES by SRIKANTH ADDALA are okay overall and brilliant in a couple of instances.

• VARUN SANDESH is one of those actors who is just damn lucky to have got his second movie too hitting the bull’s-eye at the box office with out any contribution from him in a positive manner. He is unusually hyper-active, impractically-talk-master and absolutely stupid on screen. Hats-Off to SEKHAR KAMMULA to have restricted this over acting fellow in HAPPY DAYS. He is supposed to be a guy from Kostha-district with a kostha-yaasa. But the irony of this film is that he doesn’t even speak regular Telugu properly. His diction is very poor. These comments are especially important considering that AHUTI PRASAD has been speaking spanking-kostha-yaasa unflinchingly. Even the heroine has a unique style of pronouncing a few words that make audiences laugh out loudly. And I really didn’t understand what the hell is Varun finding so funny every time he enters a scene…? He just perpetually laughs… yeah even in an emotional scene… he seems to be smiling. Gotta lean into another emotion now and then buddy… Better luck next time.
• And what is with the whole bunch of those amateur junior actresses (actors were okay)? They seem to be carrying that perpetual laugh of Varun Sandesh with them. Every girl that has a clumsy line to say smiles through her dialogue which at best can be passed as a school or college stage drama. Like that girl who portrayed Raga Sudha… who never stops smiling even in the tense moments. Or like that “Nanna Chepparu” girl who smiles whenever she has to say that dialogue. There are just too many of them… to enjoy this movie even with a cinematic sense of clumsiness.
• WOW! When was the last time JAYA SUDHA portrayed a character that does justice to her brilliance…? Well… as far as I can remember it was AMMA, NANNA O TAMIL AMMAYI way back in 2003. Correct me if I am wrong. As a character Varun’s mother is okay… but a brilliant one… it isn’t. It is not sketched out beyond the obvious nature of the character.
• PRAKASH RAJ seems to be tied down with the thickest ropes available on the sets. He under plays to my satisfation but the character itself doesn’t do any justice to his brilliance. It is just a plain-jane unidimensional character.
• RAO RAMESH (Legendary actor Rao Gopal Rao’s son) portrays the character of a Physics lecturer who teaches everything except PHYSICS while in the class and outside as well. He plays it with a tinge of over enthusiasm. I REALLY didn’t like his role at all which is over-the-top and unusual and impractical.
• CINEMATOGRAPHY by CHOTA K NAIDU, which should have been the strongest point of a romantic movie is one of the weakest links of the movie. It is just ordinary.
• I really did not find the necessity for 3 choreographers for this movie. What a wastage of money…!
• Coming to the STORY, SCREENPLAY & DIRECTION by SRIKANTH ADDALA… Let me just start by saying that it is outright hideous. It is a disgusting formulaic script that amply exploits the touchy-feely nature of the teenagers… It starts in a typical HERO with his GANG song. Absolutely first and new isn’t it? A few shots of the Study Hours, Hostel Beds and an Intermediate Mess are all that were needed to make it a success. I don’t mind if it were to be a realistically portrayed movie like PREMISTHE was. But this movie is at best a heady mix of at least a dozen films. The screenplay is a CUT/COPY-PASTE job that is done very shoddily. To start with… at the core… this movie is a copy of PREMISTHE with a lot of BOMMARILLU thrown around… a SUSWAGATHAM twist which is improvised with an implausible climax. Let me give you a few pointers as to how much this movie is a COPY and FOOLISH… 1) SWETHA PRASAD has a mother whose relationship with daughter is shown via a HAIR-GROOMING scene… exactly the way the relationship of SANDHYA is shown with her granny in PREMISTHE. 2) VARUN SANDESH has some of the most hideous and implausible conversations with his lecturer in the college campus as well as in a railway station. How foolish was that? 3) VARUN also has a conversation with heroine’s father that at best can be described as OUTRIGHTLY STUPID SCENE. 4) Misguided VARUN suddenly transforms in to a GAUTAM BUDDHA when his father is killed in an accident. As far as I can remember… it is the same sequence from SUSWAGATHAM. 5) VARUN and PRAKASH RAJ has the exact same kind of father-son relationship as RAGHUVARAN and PAWAN KALYAN have in SUSWAGATHAM. 6) VARUN doesn’t even care to know what happened to his beloved although he left her alone at a railway station as they were ready to elope. But suddenly his love for her erupts when he meets her after 4 years in the climax. Absolutely stupid. 7) How the hell did the over acting lecturer RAO RAMESH end up at the railway station to save the heroine… where the young couple planned to elope at the exact same time? What about the Engineering eduction of the heroine guys n gals? When would Indian movies take a feamle’s eduction seriously. They had ample time to show that VARUN SANDESH came as a topper… but what about SWETHA PRASAD? We are still marred by these double standards.

RAJU as a producer made a brilliant movie like BOMMARILLU in the direction of BHASKAR but since then have stooped low to attempt some pucca commercial formulae… and this time it is the exploitation of the natural tendencies of teenagers. I am quite sure… it would even bag a couple of LAZY NANDIS. Oh yeah… the title says that it is KOTHA (NEW)… but I found only PATHA (OLD). In one sentence… this movie could be summed up as… KOTHA BANGARU LOKAM = 90% MIS-GUIDANCE+10% GUIDANCE