Om Namo Venkatesaya

Sankarabharanam Movie Review - 1.25/5 - Brucelee Much...Much Better



Cast: Nikhil, Nandita, Anjali, Saptagiri and Others
Directed by: Uday Nandanavanam
Produced by: MVV Satyanarayana
Banner: MVV Cinema
Music by: Praveen Lakkaraju
Release Date: 2015-12-04

Veteran writer Kona Venkat has been making sensational comments of late all because of Shankarabharanam. The writer who has been receiving flak for repeating the same format in every film has said that he has come up with a unique storyline in Shankarabharanam. However this film is heavily inspired by a concept Hindi film Phas Gayare Obama.


What is it about?

Gautham (Nikhil) is the son of a rich businessman (Suman) in US. Gautham's father goes bankrupt as he was cheated by his friends and needs to settle 2 million dollars to save his face. Gautham's mother (Sitara) says that she would sell her palace in Bihar so that they could come out of the troubles. Gautham comes to Bihar to sell their palace and the kidnap gangs in that area sees an opportunity make crores by kidnapping him.

Performances:

Nikhil is alright as an NRI. He altered his looks to suit the character and did a decent job in pulling it off. Nandita is supposed to be funny with her broken English but hardly entertains due to poor writing. Anjali appeared as a lady don in an extended cameo and she is good. Prithvi as corrupt cop is the only relief in this film. Saptagiri tries hard but fails. Sampath Raj is alright as the kidnapping politician. Rao Ramesh and rest of the cast have done their best to keep us engaged.

Technicalities:

Uday Nandavanam could do little to make this film entertaining as the script lacks muscle. Despite having a promising premise at hands Kona Venkat messes it up with clumsy writing. All the changes that he has done to the original script backfired and most of the comedy scenes didn't click making it a boring affair.

Kona Venkat has handled many departments and couldn't excel in any. This is a rare failure from the ace writer. Music is loud and unbearable at times. Except Anjali's Ghanta song there is not a single catchy tune from Praveen. Cinematography is okay. Editing could have been better. There is so much junk that should have been chopped off from the final cut.

Thumbs Up:

Prithvi's one liners

Thumbs Down:

Screenplay

Music

Poor Comedy

Analysis:

Kona Venkat has recently stated that Bruce Lee's failure has done lot of damage to his brand! He also came up with an excuse that Sreenu Vaitla hasn't used the scenes written by him for the movie. Kona has no way to escape from this one though. Shankarabharanam is his 'brain child' and he also did direction supervision besides presenting and writing for the film.

Kona proudly stated that he has written this script by taking the basic idea from 'Phas Gaya Re Obama'. All he did was to make an interesting concept into an awful movie with his extra coatings to the original script. He should have at least stuck to the original rather spoiling the flavor by his silly additions.

Nothing worked in the first half in spite of desperate attempts to make us laugh. Second half largely runs on the scenes taken from 'Phas Gaya Re Obama'. There are attempts to add humor to the proceedings but nothing clicked except for a few one liners mouthed by Prithvi. Climax is slightly better than the rest of the movie but on a whole Shankarabharanam will leave you disappointed. Kona and only Kona have to be blamed for this as the script turns the main villain for this film.  

Verdict: Wait for ... Home Edition