Home > Telugu Movie Reviews > Narasimhudu
Cast: N.T.Rama Rao, Amisha Patel, Sameera Reddy, Chalapathi Rao, Asish Vidyarthi, Kalabhavan Mani, Puneet Isar, Jayaprakash Reddy, Nazer, Dharmavarapu, Narra, Rahul Dev, Manorama and Others.
Music: Mani Sharma.
Art: Anand Said.
Editing: Kotagiri.
Photography: K. Ravindra Babu.
Fights: Vijay.
Direction: B. Gopal.
Producer: Ch. Venkat Rao.
Banner: Sri Satyanarayanamma Productions.
 Looking at the image young actor of Nandamuri clan – NT Rama Rao (Jr.) built up in a short time, nobody expected a film featuring this 22 year old would ever be blocked at exit point from laboratory for want of payments. Producer Venkat Rao called the film, a few days ago, in an interview, a hallmark production with high values that would sure keep up to the reputation of his own banner, that turned out a masterpiece like 'Samarasimha Reddy'. But this is tinsel world in which everybody lives in dreams. A film, whose release is stopped or postponed, is considered in cinema parlance doubtful in quality and also in its business potential. Narasimhudu was finally released with the intervention of many industry leaders, as evening show, skipping the morning and matinee shows, in Hyderabad, while it got released all over the state the next day.
As doubted, the film’s sustaining quality is poor, for the director does not get a good storyline that suits young NTR’s body language. But there is effort to present him as dramatically as possible but the lack of a good backdrop for the character to develop, the narration is weakened.
 The major weak point is Narasimhudu’s orphan status. The story says that all the families of a village bring him up after the tragic death of his parents, while saving the village from being drowned under floodwaters. This shot showing the parents of Narasimhudu trying to block a huge hole to the bund itself looks so ridiculous that the irrigation engineers would laugh at. The close up shots of swirling waters with a kind of whirlpool in the middle created ghastliness but not sense. Our hero, as a boy, also takes part in that adventure of save village drama. He is saved, but not his parents. Hence he is the darling child of the village.
By nature he is shown emotional and even behaves eccentric in all disturbing conditions. This is a kind of mannerism given to his role. Into this serene village enters some real estate goondas with funny names like Mani and Phani and Pothuraju and so on. Other language artistes portray these villain roles mostly. Kalabhavan Mani, Puneet Isar, G.V.Sudhakar, Rahul Dev, Ponnambalam and some more. But for a couple of small names, major role players are these non-Telugu artistes. Sudhakar and Rahul Dev play spoil sport in the village and capture a fourteen-year-old girl, when she arrives at their guesthouse to deliver some documents to them. They rape her and kill her too, most brutally. A local doctor (Tankikella) gives clean chit to the rogues at the price of Rs.25 lakhs. This event also takes toll the life of child's grandfather (Satyanarayana). Irate at this, Narasimhudu decides to end the lives of these men and their supporters. The local police officer (Narra) shoots at Narasimha, but the boy falls into river waters, only to get revived and emerge out of the waters right at the opening of the film. That means, the action part of the drama comes to us in the first half, while what happened in the past and why Narasimhudu set out to kill these goondas is explained in the latter part of the drama, as flashback. Had it been a straight narration with chronological order the film would have made a different appeal. Thus the story is reduced to a single line order of hero avenging the wrongs done by the urban goondas after visiting their village.
 There is a bit of romantic drama featured between Amisha Patel, playing the daughter of local MRO (Dharmavarapu) and this valiant young man Narasimhudu. In the action part, Narasimhudu carries a trident with him, hurling which he kills his enemy, like he used an orated axe as Singa Malai in an earlier film Simhadri. Asish Vidyarthi plays commissioner of police, a positive role, for a change, who helps the hero by simply certifying that all the murders he committed are in the interest of the village and hence he can go scot free. The hero then goes to his lover. We have to say that they lived happily ever after.
The lack of credibility and sense in the story line killed the spirit of the production with huge cost and also that of many artistes playing useful and useless roles in this theme. Music by Mani Sharma, by now has become a kind of brandname irrespective of quality, carrying which the film can pass off as great musical. It is a pity NTR has become victim of bad story, worse screenplay and worst direction.
- ASLESHA
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