Parugu Movie Reviews

Giving a message through films is not new. Earlier Bhaskar gave a message through 'Bommarillu' that the parents should understand the feelings of the parents. In his second film 'Parugu' he tries to explain it the other way round. Though the parents love their children very much, the latter were not honouring the love of their parents and are just leaving to their own fate in search of their loved ones, which ought not to be. The film, which came after the unfortunate incident that occurred in the family of Chiranjeevi, gives the audiences a feel that it was the real life story. However, the director claimed that the story was penned long ago before the occurrence of that incident.

Neelakanta (Prakashraj) is a rich man in village. Subbalakshmi (Poonam Bajwa) and Meenakshi (Sheela) are his daughters. Subbalakshmi elopes with her boyfriend Babu, on the day she was about to marry which her father okayed. Irked over the incident, Neelakanta decides to search for his daughter and orders his men to catch Babu's friends (Sunil, Srinivasa Reddy), who obviously helped him. But they plead innocence. There is another friend called Krishna (Allu Arjun) who stays in Hyderabad. It was he who really helped Babu in his love affair.

However, he too did not reveal it. While trying to escape from the village, Krishna accidentally meets Meenakshi and loses his heart. The entire male family members of Neelakanta go in search of Subbalakshmi in Hyderabad. They happen to meet them, only to get a refusal by Subbalakshmi to come with them. Before finding Subbalakshmi, Neelakanta had an encounter with Krishna, where he reveals how bad a father feel when his daughter elopes as he brought her up for more than 22 years and wished her welfare. This makes Krishna to take a decision not to take any drastic step in his love with Meenakshi. Did Krishna able to win the heart of Meenakshi? Did Neelakanta accept the love of Krishna? What is the value of the affection of parents towards their children? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

Allu Arjun sheds a lot of weight than his recent film 'Desamuduru' where he appeared in a six-pack body. He is very chivalrous and witty in the first half. He played his role with a lot of ease in the first half. As usual, dances are his forte and he proved once again that he is very flexible in dance sequences. His steps in 'Elagelagaa' song proved his flexibility of muscles. Likewise, the make-up in the song 'Parugulu Teeyake' song was quite different.

Sheela did her job in a neat way. Poonam Bajwa had not much scope to perform.

Prakash Raj once again excelled in his role. Especially he showed good variations in emotional scenes and his expressions are worth watching.

Jayasudha made a guest appearance as a cameo and did justice to her role in a couple of scenes in which she appeared on the screen.

On the technical side, Manisharma gave very good tunes to all the songs. Camera by Vijay K Chakravarthy is okay. BVS Ravi penned good dialogues that evoked good comedy in the first half. Some of the dialogues which are one liners got an instant response from the audiences. Editing by Marthand K Venkatesh reflected his seniority. Production values of Sri Venkateswara Creations are adequate.

Though the director gave his best in the first half, he trembled in the second half as he doesn't know how to continue the story further. Most of the scenes are very boring and the audiences were seen moving impatiently in their seats in the absence of enough comedy relief. Too much of emotional scenes in the second half tested the patience of audiences.

The entire first half gave the audiences an impression that Bommarillu Bhaskar is all set to continue the magic which he did in 'Bommarillu'. However, the director's inability to run the second half leave a question mark in the face of audience.

This leaves the success of the film in a limbo. If you are a hardcore fan of Mega family, the film is okay. Otherwise, the second half would be boring, especially when the expectations on the film were high right from the day one of shooting in view of the successful combination of the hero, director and producer.

Cast: Allu Arjun, Sheela, Prakash Raj, Poonam Bajwa, Sunil, Srinivasa Reddy, Pruthvi, Chitram Sreenu, Dhanraj, Subbaraju, Jayaprakash Reddy, Raju, Jeeva, Jayasudha, Ali, Kalpana, Rajitha, Ragini, Delhi Rajeswari and others

Credits: Dialogues €“ BVS Ravi, Lyrics €“ Sirivennela Sitaramasastry, Chandrabose, Ananta Srireem, Photography €“ Vijay K Chakravarthy, Editing €“ Marthand K Venkatesh, Art €“ Anand Sai, Music €“ Manisharma, Co-producers €“ Sireesh and Lakshman, Presents €“ Smt. Anitha, Producer €“ Dil Raju, Story, dialogues, screenplay and direction €“ Bhaskar.

Banner: Sri Venkateswara Creations

Released on: May 1, 2008