Pandurangadu – 7/10

What is it all about ?

How Paadu (Bad) Ranga becomes staunch devotee of Panduranga.

Highlights:

– M.M.Keeravani: Among the current music directors, apart from Keeravani it is difficult even to imagine any other music director for devotional films . He has laid a strong impression on us with his amazing work. Once again, he surpasses the expectations with very good songs and exceptional back ground score especially towards climax. Nice to see famous bhajans,songs like “Krishna jai…” in the film.

– Balakrishna: He is very good in Lord Sri Krishna’s role. He resembles NTR a lot. In Ranga’s role, he is ok in the first half and towards the climax he performed very well. His devotion for this devotional film is obvious.

– Direction: Raghavendra Rao proves once again, why he is regarded as master in showing any concept commercially. He has laced many commercial elements like humour, glamour and made this film watchable by even youngsters. Though it is a period film, it has many interesting elements that make audience glue to the screen.

– Bharavi: The key person behind all the successful devotional films in recent times should be commended for his splendid grip on these subjects. He seems to have some pre-fixed formats in penning a script. For example, in each of his scripts we can find that a mistake committed by the protagonist is pointed out with respect to the Lord.

1) In “Annamayya”, wearing padarakshalu in sacred Tirumala zone.

2) In “Sri Ramadasu”, putting the divine parrot in cage.

3) In “Pandurangadu”, neglecting the Lord when he calls Ranga who is serving his parents.

This is interesting.

– Sneha seems to be a perfect replacement for Soundarya.

– The interval block is good.

– Some songs and scenes stand out:

1) The song in which Ranga pleads his mother and father upon realizing his mistakes, is excellent.

2) The song in which Ranga pleads the Lord to give darshan.

3) The scene in which Sneha, reveals the real reason behind her grief when the whole family of Ranga criticize him.

4) The scene in which Ranga neglects Lord Krishna, when he is busy serving his parents.

– Lyrics are also very much interesting in many songs.

– Dialogues: This time, Bharavi has concentrated a lot on dialogues too. He tried to extract fun through pun.

Eg:

1) Ranga: Krishnudu cheste leela nenu cheste golaa ?

2) Sneha: meeru maari poyaaranukunna, nene yemaaripoyaanu.

3) Narada: tanu utta bhakturaalu kaadu, uttama bhakturaalu.

– Mohan Babu is good in his short role.

– Dharmavarapu Subramanyam’s usage, “Hey Raajan…” is strange yet funny.

Lowlights:

– Repetition of scenes. There are many similar scenes in the film which add no variety or help in moving the film. Especially Ranga’s family all the while staying in grief criticising him is shown too many times with no big difference. The same is the case with the scenes involving them, urging Sneha to stop her hunger strike.

– First half: It doesn’t look like a devotional film. It would have been nice if they would have cut short the scenes between Tabu and Balakrishna and focussed more on the history of “Panduranga”.

– There seems to be lot of scenes created over the collected details. There is also overplay of emotions.

Eg: In a serious scene, Sneha imitating Tabu and weeping, has been used to evoke laughter.

– Lord Krishna’s character is moulded mostly in a comic way. However, there is less amount of devotional elements.

– When Ranga puts forth the Lord the general doubt, about his deeds, the explanation given is still ambiguous.

– Too many double meaning dialogues.

– It is strange to see a Devotional film getting Censor ‘U/A’ certificate instead of a Clean ‘U’ one.

– LB Sriram’s role doesn’t seem like an original Narada character but looks like a parody one. Dialogues like “naa kanta sannivesam ledu prabhu” as translation to “naa kanta scene ledu” are used. Though they could generate humour but it is quite unconvincing to visualize a key role like Narada in such actions.

– Sunil’s comedy is mediocre.

Final Touch:

With perfect justification by Balakrishna, Raghavendra Rao, Keeravani, Bharavi to their roles, this film reaches the expectations. The only problem that this film has is its first half footage. It is dominated by Ranga’s ailments over devotional elements. This might disturb the audience who watch this movie for divine elements. Scenes over the sins of Ranga should have been trimmed.

The makers should be lauded for showing the importance of parents and the Lord.

‘Re’-'view’ing can be done directly on the second half of the movie.

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Tags: archana, audience, Balakrishna, brindavanam, devotional, dharmavarapu subrahmanyam, humour, interval, J.K.Bharavi, k.raghavendra rao, Keeravani, krishna, LB sriram, mm keeravani, narada, NTR, pandurangadu, ranga, rukminik, satyabhama, sp balu, suhasini, Sunil, veda, youngsters