January 16, 2010 Anjali
Rating - **.75
Cast: Venkatesh, Trisha, Brahmanandam, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Mukesh Rishi, Subbaraju, Dharmavarapu, Ali, Master Bharat and others.
Action: Vijay.
Art: AS Prakash.
Banner: 14 Reels Entertainment.
Cinematography: Prasad Murella.
Dialogues: Chintapalli Ramana.
Editing: MR Verma.
Lyrics: Ramajogaiah Sastry.
Music: Devisri Prasad.
Story: Gopimohan.
Presenter: D. Suresh Babu.
Producer(s): Ram Achanta, Gopinath Achanta, Anil Sunkara.
Director: Sreenu Vaitla.
Release Date: January 14, 2010
It's a really good combi (read the credits above). Great expectations. Read on.
Venkataramana is a ventriloquist who travels to Paris with other artistes for the Telugu association there. He falls in love with heiress Pooja, niece of the program organizer and official wise guy Paris Prasad. Prasad plays a prank on Venky and involves Pooja to convince him that she is in love with him. When she is abducted by her uncle and forced to marry her cousin, Prasad makes Venky go with him to the Faction Capital to rescue her.
Namo Venkatesa has bits and pieces from other movies, mostly Venkatesh's own and a little from Rayalaseema Faction Bigwig movies (like Ready) and a teeny tiny portion from Jab We Met. Venkatesh seems to enjoy playing Loser (AMAV), unmarried, aging guy (Malliswari), simpleton (NNN) and in this case, all the above+Joker. Somehow its not that exciting anymore, and all of it has been done to death, and Venkatesh himself has explored all this a lot. Even the faction angle, in Tulasi. Last straw, Paris Prasad is reflective of Brahmanandam in Manmadhudu.
The only new thing, relatively, is the dynamic between Venkatesh and Brahmanandam with the meatiest role he's played in a long time and also the meatiest in the movie. Trisha and Venkatesh's chemistry is good, but the same (old) chemistry from AMAV. Brahmanandam and his friends as practical jokers and their plots backfiring on them have some comical moments in the first half. Venkatesh getting drunk make two more comic scenes. Shakuntala induces a few grins, as do Venkatesh's trademark timing and his elaborate Namaskaram for his favorite God.
The main issue with the movie as a whole is it's not really all that interesting, despite the comedy and mainly because there's NOTHING new to offer. Venkatesh-Brahmanandam steal the thunder, and Namo Venkatesa sails due to the same.
Trisha sits pretty, while the villain gang, from Mukesh Rishi to Subbaraju performs their usual act. When the role's not written to add anything new, what's an actor got to do? The climax is a big let-down. Like in all Sreenu Vaitla movies, everything works out miraculously in the end but this time around there's no charm to it. No..punch. Like the fizz finishes in the cola by the end of the movie.
The only catchy number is the title song and the last song in the movie; none of the other songs leave a mark. And they are pretty boring too, audio and video wise.
Namo Venkatesa is okay for a one-time watch, but just okay. Clean, comic, Family-Entertainer-Yes. But with a staleness about it that's hard to ignore. A re-run of all of Victory Venkatesh's recent releases and a rehash of a couple other movies is Namo Venkatesa. Dear God..
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