Rating: 3/5
Banner: Sri Lakshmi Venkateswara Cinema
Cast: Nandamuri Balakrishna, Trisha, Radhika Apte, Jayasudha, Prakash Raj, Ali and Others
Music: Mani Sharma
Cinematography: Venkata Prasad
Editor: Gautham Raju
Producer: Rudrapati Ramana Rao
Story, Screenplay and Direction: Satyadev
Release Date: 14th May 2015
After delivering blockbuster with Legend, Nandamuri Balakrishna is back with Lion. Teaming up with actress Trisha for the first-time and first-timer director Satyadev, Balayya dons the hat of CBI officer raising curiosity on the film. Given that it's his 98th film in filmography and first film after he was elected as MLA for Hindupur constituency, the film garnered lot of hype, buzz. Let's check out..
Story: The story of the film starts off with Bose(Balakrishna) coming back to life after staying in a coma for eighteen months. As soon as he recovers, Bose is suddenly mistaken as Godse by everyone around him. Bose keeps convincing all of them that he is not Godse and has his own story.
Who is this Bose ? What does he have to do with Godse? What is the story behind all this confusion ? And where do Radhika Apte and Trisha feature in this set up. That forms the rest of the story.
Performances: Balayya has stolen the show with his top-knotch performance and timely punch-liners. It's his show all the way. Right from the beginning to the end, he captures the maximum screen presence. As usual, Balayya played it to the gallery and wins the hearts of both masses, family audiences with dose of action, sentiment and fun.
Trisha returns to Telugu cinema after a brief hiatus. She's easy on eyes as Balayya's love-interest and also sizzles as private money lender Mahalakshmi.
Radhika is limited to brief role yet she managed to make her presence left. She is okay in her role as second fiddle.
As expected, Prakash Raj lives up to his character and yet again proved his mettle as cunning politician.
Technical Aspects: Background score by Mani Sharma is pretty decent and elevates the film to another level. Songs are just about ok and have been shot well. Dialogues written for Balayya are top notch and will get decent applause from the audience. Screenplay of the film lacks focus. As mentioned earlier, some unnecessary episodes disturb the flow of the film.
Coming to the director Satyadeva, he makes an ok debut and manages to showcase Balayya in a wonderful light. He extracts superb performance from him but falters a bit with his narration and does not generate enough depth in his story line.
Highlights:
Balakrishna
Climax
Drawbacks:
Editing
Predictable Second Half
Analysis: Balakrishna is one actor who is able to slip into the role he's playing and mould him to the needs. This time around, he essays the role of CBI officer taking on the wicked, power-hungry politician Bharadwaj (Prakash Raj). As the movie strats on an interesting theme where Balayya is seen in hospital waking from mortuary, the film straight away slips into the story without wasting much. The first half of the film is good and it shows Balayya baffling to regain his lost memory and his daunting past. However, director Satyadev doesn't strain you much and gives a clear picture with a perfect interval bang - setting the record straight that there's only one character for Balayya (Bose) and the other character Godse was just created from figment of imagination by Villain Prakash Raj to mislead Bose, his investigation against him. This sets good stage for the second part of the flick.
Second half of the flick, though predictable, deja vu, it moves forward without many stumbling blocks. Like many Telugu commercial films, this movie too has its share of flaws as newcomer filmmaker fail to fill all the loopholes in the script. Few logics fall flat. But the end result is better than Balayya's previous films. Pre-climax portions could have been handled well. Climax is decent and satiates the hopes of fans. On whole, Lion makes for one-time watch and it's perfect potbolier tailor-made for fans.
Bottomline: Watch it only for Balayya.
Post a Comment