Evaraina Epudaina Review

It's hard to find Varun Sandesh cute now. Evaraina Epudaina has a 30-minute gag that has him positively terrorize two defenceless, well-meaning old women, by, among other things, inflicting pain on one, and using an overdose of sleeping pills on the other. But, well, no one ever endorsed the attendance of ethics and respect in a movie hall screening a comedy. Or that of a brain.

Venkat (Varun Sandesh) is a regular do-nothinger who earns money by blackmailing random couples. Still, all's well with the world and all that, until some shards of glass start featuring the heroine (Vimala Raman) as their cover story.

The opening love sequence involving the heroine's reflection in multiple pieces of broken glass shows two things - a) when a mirror is broken, light reflects only off the heroine, even if there are 6,67,958 bystanders nearby, and b) Srihari's fights have better scientific accuracy.

Wooing the heroine is easy and tough at the same time. Venkat has been uncouth to Madhumita's dad and her grandmother in an accident that injures his (Venkat's) and her grandmothers. But he finds out that they're Madhumita's folks only after getting to the hospital. What's more, he keeps bumping into her folks all over the city.

With a mixture of cunning, deceit, impertinence towards elders, bad diction, and several other qualities that would make him land into Satan's Hall Of Fame, Venkat sets up various situations to make Madhumita fall in love with him. How else is an adult male supposed to show a simple, gentle and dignified woman that he loves her? No one knows. Mainly since Venkat is light years away from adulthood.

In the process, he overdoes the buttering up bit, and inadvertently screws up someone's life. Being the nimrods that they are, Madhumita's family members think he's the best thing that happened to the world since penicillin. Venkat sheepishly realizes his mistake, and makes a huge decision to stop using mindless deception to win over his girl. After 30 seconds, his aunt makes him see reason, and he gets back to the wooing act.

This time, he fakes a rescue operation and an injury, and lodges himself in Madhumita's home. This is followed by the flipping of the heroine for the hero, aided by a sub-plot involving an old age home that she runs. And of course, she falls for him. How else will we get a chance to see his face in the glass shards?

On the brighter side, Evaraina Epudaina doesn't have anything lewd in the comedy. It's just that the director keeps wanting infinite laughs by showing people getting rudely ripped off. Plus, it gets cacophonous at times, like the scenes in the hospital. On an even brighter side, Evaraina is not a long film - it lasts 2.5 hours.

On the cloudier side, however, Varun Sandesh is fatally confused between over-caffeinated spring-action and comic timing. In an unjustified plot ending, he's even given a fight to show his 'hero' abilities. Vimala Raman is a pleasant face to have around, and she can act, but she looks older than him. The rest of the performances aren't too great, save for Giribabu and the cameos by a couple of Tollywood's favourite comedians.

The songs are well-choreographed and the visuals are good. A big banner production does take care of the packaging.

Evaraina Epudaina is for Varun Sandesh fans who swoon at the mention of his name. It's a good way to stop swooning - swooning isn't healthy.