Pellamtho Panenti Review

For years now I have been trying to understand why S V Krishna Reddy always mentions his degree beside his name. Maybe he hopes to add credibility to his filmmaking by portraying himself as an educated director. If he continues to make films like this, he has to study much harder, since he'd require to add a lot more there.

A snoozefest, Pellamtho Panenti is so twisted that you begin to wait for it to get entangled in its contradictions. At a run time of over 2 and ½ hours, it is 2 hours too long. First off, the film fails to justify its "intriguing" title. Only a passing comment is made in this direction. The credits are all SVK's (Story, Screenplay, Music and Direction), hence the blame is also all his own.

The story is Krishna Reddy's home spun tale of yawn. Venu is a successful entrepreneur who is does not believe in love. He believes that love is a kind of business. Laya is a transcriptioner who falls for him hook, line and sinker. Venu brushes her off. He later does the same to Kalyani. What he however doesn't know is that Kalyani is dying, and hence he later gives her compassionate love (?). More oddball twists follow and finally we have a winner. Laya. No suspense there.

Krishna Reddy films unnecessarily elaborate and boring scenes in the name of "character development". All he had to do was use a voiceover, following the recent trend in Telugu movies, but no, he's different. He HAS to put us through monologues by characters so loud (literally), they cause your brain chambers to resonate.

Yawn 1 is within 20 minutes of the opening scene. Did I say yawn? I mean song. But seriously, Krishna Reddy making music is like Superstar Krishna dancing. Besides the music, the choreography looked suspiciously like SV's work. But you won't notice the dance, the costumes are that good. They really are stunning. Yawn 1 and Yawn 4 are worth a watch for Laya. Yawn 5 has a background dancer so ugly, your eyes begin to dart trying to locate her and fathom her ugliness. A kind of show stealing I guess.

Venu hasn't much to do in the film - the major role in the movie belongs to Mr. Brain Chamber Resonater (boohoo). Kalyani looks good, while Laya is stunning. At least now Telugu movies have heroines who fit into their clothes. On the flip side, Venu has more clear skin on his nose than both heroines combined. Uttej's character is lovable, but Kota seems to have shot while he was down with the flu.

The most enlightening part of the show was before the movie, a documentary called "Appreciating Picasso". In Telugu.