Okkadu Chaalu Review

An honest police officer, two pretty girls vying to woo him and a menacing villain with ISI links - these are the usual ingredients for a gripping action flick (though not necessarily convincing). But despite having all these, Raviraja delivers a dud.

ACP Surya's (Rajasekhar) sole mission in life is to rid the society of all evils, including those of the political kind. An orphaned child raised by an Army Major (Vishnuvardhan) to be an upright cop, he instantly takes on Dhanraj (Sarat Saxena) on arrival in Hyderabad, after organizing a police strike and hitting a minister with his shoe in Visakhapatnam

Now this Dhanraj is a deadly character. He walks on to the screen over his father's dead body and shoots the four doctors who could not save the ailing oldman. His temperment is such that he would have no Deevali celebration in his neighbourhood—Basheerbagh to be precise—because he is sad over his father's death and seeks to cremate the body right in the middle of the road.

But ACP Surya plays spoil sport and forces Dhanraj to shift the funeral drama to the city outskirts. That marks the beginning of a boring battle between good and evil which ends predictably with the heroic cop bumping off all the baddies. His fight is not focused with all sorts of diversions. And his trauma at being victimized by his colleagues and being turned away by his foster mother, evokes little sympathy for want of a logical buildup.

When the film was launched, Rajasekhar boldly proclaimed that he was playing a powerful role like the one he did in Ankusam, long ago. But now any such comparison looks far-fetched, as Okkadu Chalu simply falls flat in its narrative.

Probalbly Raviraja thought one Rajasekhar is enouth to carry the film forward. It has quite a few good artistes—Giribabu, Ranganath and Devdas Kanakala—without any good roles. Kota, who plays a petty but smart outlaw, provides some comic relief. One wonders why Rambha and Sanghavi are there if they are not used properly even as glamour props. Heroine of yesteryears, Sumalatha, looks still young and should wait for some more time before playing the hero's mother.

Though the title assures "One is enough", we in fact have two—Rajasekhar and Raviraja. But what's the use.