Chusoddham Randi Review

Directors debuting with a remake film arrive with a bang, and for as long as they continue with remakes, they manage to stick on. But when they try to make something on their own, they end up on the wrong side of success. And this seems to be exactly the case with Raja Vannem Reddy, the successful director of Kshemanga Velli Labhanga Randi.

After experimenting with a middle-class problem in Kshemanga Velli... Vannem Reddy now seeks to do the same with a love triangle. The principle characters, Srikant and Rambha, share a tenant-owner relationship, and nothing beyond that. For she falls in love with Jagapathi Babu, and till she finds him (she comes from Vizag in search of him but cannot find him since he's shifted his residence without intimating her), she and Srikant pass time by showering endearments on the latter's niece.

The movie progresses for more than an hour with the benign Srikant protecting Rambha from the covetous eyes of the goon Ponnambalam, on the ground that they are husband and wife. And the moralistic Ponnambalam doesn't molest women who are married. With his natural instinct for lying, Srikant manages to save Rambha everytime that Ponnambalam has misgivings about their relationship. And amazingly, Rambha doesn't know about all this.

So far, so good. Actually, it's not all that good. It is shot so badly that there is no life in the film. While Rambha is looking for her boyfriend, the director unfolds Srikant's past. The man is an orphan growing up with his aged sister and brother-in-law, and has been behind bars for allegedly killing a boy. On his release he vows not to go back to his village till he has earned enough money to convince the folks of the girl he loves to allow the two of them to marry.


Meanwhile Rambha finds Jagapathi Babu, and they sing a couple of songs in Iceland. Srikant, who doesn't love Rambha and is not bothered whom she is dating, comes to know that she is the same girl that he wanted to marry. And it's tragedy time. And it gets worse as the movie progresses towards its convoluted end.

The lesser we go into the behind-the-scenes work, the better. There is nothing in the film that can make you sit through two-and-a-half hours. And Rambha is neither sensuous enough to sizzle in the songs nor do the songs add any glamour to the film. Jagapathi Babu is the worst of the lot. Except for playing silly pranks on his father and getting slapped by Rambha, he doesn't do anything. For that matter, Rambha serves one on the cheek of Srikant too. And the tears that well up in Srikant's eyes flow in streams till the movie is over. The film looks so silly that even those who like sentimental dramas will not want to have any of it.