TeLuGu HaNgOuT

Starring Bindu Madhavi of ‘Avakai Biryani’ director Raju Rajendra Prasad of ‘Konchem Kothaga’ is set to make a film. V. Nageder is producing the film on Prakash V Productions banner. Actor and director Ravi Babu is entrusted with a heavy role that carries the plot forward.

The story is based on the real life incidents that happen to the characters on screen in contemporary modern society. Bindhu Madhavi and Ravi Babu play key roles that carry a lot of weightage in the script. The girl who gave a graceful performance in her debut film itself, Bindhu will have abundant scope to act in this movie, says the director.

Makers have made plans to the launch the film by this week. Other cast includes Jaiprakash Reddy, MS Narayana and Chalapathi Rao.

Cinematography is by PS Vamsikrishna, editing by Anirudra and art direction is handled by Ramakrishna.

Apart from this film, Bindhu Madhavi will soon share screen space with Sai Ram Shankar in a movie to be directed by Puri Jagannath.

Balakrishna’s ongoing film has been titled ‘Mitrudu’ which the makers say is the best one that suits the script. Priyamani plays heroine in this film directed by Mahadev, a previous associate of SS Rajamouli.

Sivalenka Krishna Prasad of 'Adithya 369' and 'Vamshanikokkadu' produces the film on Vaishnavi Cinema banner. The shooting of the film is near completion with the songs to be canned in abroad locations. Priyamani has done her fair share of glamour to enrich the hype quotient. Balakrishna resumed the film’s shooting after completing the TDP works and the crew is working in a rapid pace to complete it in time.

The movie is slated for an April release.

Punchline: superstar meets humble barber Banner: Red Chillies Entertainment Genre: Drama Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Irfan Khan & Lara Dutta Music: Pritam Background music: Sandeep Chowta Cinematography: V Manikanandan Editor: Arun Kumar Dialogues: Manisha Korde Screenplay: Priyadarshan & Mushtaq Sheikh Direction: Priyadarshan Producers: Gauri Khan Release date: 13 Feb 2009

Review

Story Billu (Irfan Khan) is a humble barber from a remote village in Northern India. Sahir Khan (Shahrukh Khan) is a bollywood superstar. The unit of Sahir Khan's latest film visits the village of Billu for a long schedule. The village men find out that Sahir Khan is the childhood friend of Billu and go to Billu to take them to meet Sahir. Being a shy and honest guy, Billu fears that Sahir might have become materialistic and forgot all the good times they had together as youth. The rest of the story is all about whether Sahir remembers Billu or not. Actors: Irfan Khan is excellent as Billu – an honest human being. Shahrukh Khan plays a role that is close to his real life and he brings in much desired glamour. Lara Dutta is adequate as poor housewife. However, her sophisticated looks do dominate the simplicity and naivety needed for such a role. Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone did item songs in this film. Deepika Padukone is absolutely hot. The regulars of Priyadarshan movies – Rajpal Yadav, Asrani, Om Puri, Manoj Joshi are also present. Technical departments: Story: Billu Barber is a remake of Malayalam blockbuster which was remade into Telugu (Kathanayakudu) and Tamil (Kuselan). The story is based on the relationship of Lord Srikrishna and his poor friend Kuchela. Direction of the film is just average. Screenplay should have been better. The moment Billoo communicates with Sahir, the movie would be over. The entire film is woven using a screenplay that avoids the meeting of these two people till climax. The events used for that purpose should have been more gripping. Another disturbing thing about the film is the unnecessary scenes and songs involving Shahrukh Khan. Priyadarshan criticized the screenplay of Kuselan saying that too much of importance is given to Rajnikant in Telugu/Tamil versions. But Priyadardhan too didn't do any better in Hindi version. The trademark Priyadarshan comedy is missing in this film. The only honest moment I saw in this movie was Irfan Khan's reaction when his wife doubts him if he knows the superstar. Other technical departments: Music by Pritam is mediocre with heard-before tunes. Dialogues are adequate. Photography of the film is excellent. The locations used for this film are extraordinary with water falls, hills and lots of greenery. Art direction is very good. Dialogues are neat. Editing should have been crisper. Analysis: This movie belongs to Irfan Khan. Being a star and the producer Shahrukh Khan, he took more footage than necessary in the film. All the scenes involving Irfan Khan look natural and scenes of Shahrukh Khan are artificial. The climax of the film is heart-touching as it deals with humanity and friendship. It is becoming routine to have 3-4 heroines to come and dance in Sharukh Khan movies (Om Shanti Om, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Billu Barber). On a whole, Billu Barber disappoints as it is neither a commercial film nor an art film.

Vaishnavi Cinema is producing a high budget film starring Balarkrishna and Priyamani in the main cast. Debutant director Mahadev, an erstwhile associate of SS Rajamouli is directing the film produced by Sivalenka Krishna Prasad of 'Adithya 369' and 'Vamshanikokkadu'.

Balakrishna was busy on a tour campaigning for TDP all over Andhra Pradesh. Recently, he completed the road show and resumed shooting on Monday. Important scenes were filmed in sets constructed at Annapurna Studios. The lead cast of the film along with other important artists was featured in the scenes.

In this current ongoing schedule, the end scenes will also be canned before the end date of 28th February. With the sequential portions done, songs will be filmed in March in abroad locations

Movie: Bank
My Rating: 1/5
Music: Chinni Charan
Fights: Ram-Laxman
Dialogues: Arun Kumar
Story, screenplay & Direction: Arun Kumar
Producer: Amrutha Arun Kumar
Cast: Raghuvaran, Abbas, Jackie Shroff, Rahul Dev, Veda, Pooja Bharathi, Baby Bhavana, Sreedhar Rao etc
Release Date: 30 Jan 2009

Movie Review:

The title 'Bank' has been snuggling in film news from about 2-3 years. At last it's released today. The film received some attention due to Jackie Shroff and Raghuvaran in main star cast. The film was intended to make with the essence 'where there is money there is crime' (as told by director in the beginning of this movie). Let us see how it worked on the heads of audiences.

Story
The story runs around the robbery of a bank by the team of four men and a lady (Rahul Dev, Raghuvaran, Jackie Shroff, Abbas and Veda). They conspire and go successful in pilfering money from a bank but at the running-away point it happens that only Jackie Shroff takes the bag that contains Rs 100 Cr (!!! Denomination not known!!! Even though Rs 1000, it comes to 10000 bundles-in a small bag!!!). He gets hurt by the bullet of a security guard and hence he makes a successful attempt to run away from that place and throw the currency bag in a well. He also makes a map of that place writing on a paper with his blood. He takes the help of a chaiwala to handover that paper to his friends and escapes. Chaiwala does that and the team knows the whereabouts of that money after coming out from jail after 4 years. They go in search of that with the help of map, and find that a house got constructed on the Well. They attack the people in that house and dig the place where the Well was there earlier and takes out their bag. But who gets that bag at last, is the climax.

Artists Performance:
Everybody appeared to have done over action. Especially the histrionics of Raghuvaran are over dosed. The dubbing sounded for Jackie Shroff is louder and overboard. Veda's role as lady robber recalls Jyothi Rana in Pokiri. Abbas made an insipid presence but there is no other go for him. Pooja Bharathi acted in so-called action/thrill sequence in second half. Baby Bhavana has nothing big to act than crying. Model Sreedhar Rao appeared in guest role and a song.

Technically, the movie is very weak. The director failed to understand the degree of intensity to be shown while canning every scene. Even RR and BGS (Back Ground Score) didn't match the requirement.

Director should be blamed for entire dull-show. He has taken almost all the key departments story, dialogues and screenplay. Finally, the film appeared to have done by an amateur. It's a funny torture for audiences to watch this movie. Audiences find relief as the characters in the film die one by one. That was the disgust developed in this 2 hrs show.

The climax is so vague and weak that the film gets erased from the minds of people within a day, but the hangover of pain continues for another day.

Final Analysis:
This erratic story line tests the patience of audiences. It's almost made like a child-play but not as suspense thriller. There are many blunders in the movie that made people laugh. The director seems to have got inspired by a few Hollywood flicks and attempted this dreaming bigger thing. But it ended up as a dud. How the biggies like Jackie Shroff, Raghuvaran or Rahul Dev could agree to work for this film? That becomes a big question all together.

The film lacked in basic common sense. The terminology and the presentation of scenes are also disgusting for audiences viz: hijacking software (!!!), narco analysis injection (!!!). How a man can dig a Well with a small spade? How come the so-called narco-analysis injections make security guards unconscious but walk? There are myriad things that made people laugh at the movie. It goes without saying that the film got 'bank'rupted.