Allari Ramudu Review

Quite a few people speculate that B Gopal strongly believes that a director without a colorful-macho-mass hit every year is similar to a song without a melody, a hamburger without the meat, a theater with no audience. Most likely their guesswork is right; because our man makes a comeback with yet another mastodonic crude flick, which airs NTR Jr. as Allari Ramudu (and also as Aggi Ramudu under cover). Allari Ramudu, essentially an effort to promote NTR Jr. among the masses, is an emotional "mass" comedy sketched on the canvas of factionism.

Allari Ramudu gets underway with an Allari Alludu type story. Ramu (NTR Jr.) is a nephew of Chamundeswari (Nagma), a ruthless industrialist. Ramu enters Chamundeswari's home as a servant. Enter Mythili (Aarti Agarwal), the kindhearted daughter of Chamundeswari, who falls for the virtues and honesty of Ramu. More often than not Chamundeswari takes a dim view of the love of Mythili and Ramu, and goes ahead settling Mythili's marriage elsewhere. Now Ramu isn't sucking lollipop either. He counter-challenges Chamundeswari that he will make Mythili his lawful wife on 12th - Ekadasi - the upcoming Monday. Whether Ramu is able to keep up his promise is what the climax is all about.

NTR Jr. does a fine job as the lead male and steals the show. Powerful dialogues by the Paruchuri brothers are well complemented by the compelling stance of Jr. throughout the movie. Also worth mentioning are his dance moves, which are as peppery as the profane lyrics themselves. We feel that it's nice to see that there is still someone out there who can do the rough-and-ready dance and isn't afraid to show it. What more, we even think NTR Jr. could be the future Michael Jackson - that is, once he manages to turn out to be skinny and fair enough!

Nagma throws a monkey wrench in the work with an underwhelming performance in a handful of scenes. Aarti Agarwal's performance appears passable. She manages to give the impression of being fragile and seductive in some scenes, and forceful and independent in others. Background scores by R P Patnaik are good enough, but not as good as the ones in Narasimha Naidu.

Believe you know the whole lot about B Gopal's technique just because you have seen Narasimha Naidu about a zillion times? Don't bet on it - Allari Ramudu has no resemblance whatsoever to his earlier movies, with an exception to the emotional-mass-comedy-factionist-formula. The movie loses its integrity in the second half as Gopal tried to pop in heaps of detail.

Inference: With movies like Allari Ramudu, it's always best to relax your intellectual faculties and absorb the abundant sensual pleasures, be it the heart-stopping smile of Aarti Agarwal, an intoxicating serving of the Seema-Sandadi by NTR Jr., or the raunchy and gyratory music conceived by R P Patnaik.