Nuvvu Naaku Nachchaav Review

"A beautiful girl asks you to pluck her a flower, and you don't even do that?" asks perky little Pinky of Venkatesh, pointing to the pretty Aarti sitting opposite them. "Are you even a man?!"

"Lady, I've got enough doubts already," pleads Venkatesh, "please don't give me new ones!"

That one's quintessentially Nuvvu Naaku Nachchaav, and is only one of zillions of hilarious ones in one of the cutest Telugu films to hit the screens in recent memory. Indeed, this is what you go to a theater for - forget the rest of the world and just enjoy yourself for 150 minutes!

Nuvvu Naaku Nachchaav is excellent entertainment right from the word go. Good, clean and original humor, a hero who does not beat up a single guy in the entire film and is still a role model, superb performances, zero embarrassing moments and extremely engrossing all through. It's surprising that this one came from ol' Tollywood!

The tale as such is a romance, and is nothing new - there are only so many things you can do about two people falling in love. Sekhar (Chandramohan) and Srinivas (Prakash Raj) are childhood friends, and while Sekhar is an ordinary farmer in Anakapalli, Srinivas is a big businessman in Hyderabad, thanks mostly to Sekhar's helping him in his struggling days.

Venkateshwarlu aka Venky (Venkatesh) is the happy-go-lucky son of Sekhar, and has dad terribly worried with his wayward ways and lame education. So Sekhar packs him off to Hyderabad to Srinivas' house so he'll get civilized under Srinivas' strict supervision and can get himself a job.

Venkatesh is hilarious from the moment he enters. Srinivas gives him accommodation in the outhouse right next to their mansion, and he's given strict guidelines for behavior. Our man, being the extremely lovable and good-humored person that he is, soon endears himself to everyone in the opulent house.

Everyone, that is, except Nandini (Aarti Agrawal), Srinivas' daughter who's just gotten engaged to marry an NRI groom. She and her kid cousin Pinky keep trying to taunt Venky, but our man is no dud, and you have several wacky dialogues and scenes as he keeps managing their hostility. The whole of the 90-minute first half has about 5 minutes where there isn't a smile on your face. The dialogues are very creative, and the humor is quite innovative most of the times.

It's frankly difficult for anyone not to fall in love with Venky - he's energetic and talkative, never ruffled, always in great humor and totally unpreachy. And sure enough, Nandini eventually falls for his charm, and she says it out to him by the end of the first half. And Venky is shocked - she's engaged, and she's the daughter of his father's best friend. So he decides to leave the place.

Now you'd expect the film to go down the drain, with sobs, insults from both sides, painful efforts at union and lots of violence. And that is best part of Nuvvu...- the second half has none of this, and is just as entertaining as the first.

Srinivas brings Venky back from the station before he can leave, and our man is right back to his good-humored and vibrant self. But Nandini is cheesed off with him. Venky tries hard and in a variety of ways to bring the relation back to normal, but it's long before he can do it - and you have loads of fun all through.

Things never get fully back to normal, though - Nandini is still in love with him, despite all his subtle efforts to hint to her that that can't happen. And he's in love, too.

The film is nearly completely shorn of the melodrama so typical of Telugu films. There are some heavy parts and senti moments, but they're nearly always well done. For example, the part where Venky tells Nandini why he'd prefer being farmer in Anakapalli to going to the US if he ever got a chance is pretty good, especially considering that it could so easily have become rhetoric and jingoistic.

The highlights of the film are all the original humor and the subtlety in approach so alien to Tollywood. The dialogue writer, Trivikram Srinivas, is perhaps the real hero in this one. And Vijay Bhaskar should be commended on not letting the second half do the film in like we see so many times.

Venkatesh as Venky is excellent, in case we still didn't make the point. This is on par with the Shah Rukh performance of DDLJ. Any lesser actor would've undermined the effort behind the dialogues. All the rest of the cast, including Suhasini in a guest appearance, is good. The humor with Brahmanandam is a little contrived, though.

The only real problem is Aarti. This is her first film, and it shows. She is poor at dialogue delivery and there is no great chemistry between her and Venkatesh, and these take something away from what might have been a flawless film. Some parts when she's cross with Venky are rather unconvincing - she's obviously in love with him, but is made to look like she can't stand him.

The music by Koti is above average. The first song, Aakaasam Digivachchi, has good lyrics, and O Navvu Chalu by Shankar Mahadevan, a bachelor song, is good, too. As time progresses, the popularity of the film itself will make all songs popular.

Nuvvu Naaku Nachchaav is wholesome entertainment - don't miss it!