Seenugaadu Chiranjeevi Fan Review

If Chiranjeevi's movies are tough to write about because you don't know where to separate the megastar's magnetism and hype from the real merit of the movie, Seenugaadu Chiranjeevi Fan is tough to review because you don't know where to draw the line between the sheer baloney and the script.

You kind of already expect the story to be poppycock, but this poppycock is so loaded, it bears down on you like a pound of lead. Indiscriminate inanity flung upon you can be as savage as sitting on 20 giant-wheel rides one after another. Harmless in isolation, lethal in bulk.

The one resounding thought that leaves with you when you scuttle out from the theater like a rat that's been scalded by boiling water, is the nature of the creative process that yields movie scripts like this. If there is a creative process, that is. Of course, there could just be a handful of pre-decided landmarks that steer the movie - songs, or more specifically, some popping cleavage in them, a dialogue by an invisible Chiranjeevi, or some Kung-Fu scenes. The movie could simply be the easiest route that snakes through these landmarks.

Then there is the highly unlikely possibility that there is that formidable creative process. For example, a bonfire night with some friendly tittle-tattle, a drunken dream after a stag's party, a make-your-own-story contest for retards, or a "what is the crappiest story you can defend?" dare for scriptwriters.

Seenugaadu Chiranjeevi Fan is the outcome of one such apology for a creative process. Or the simply unabashedly shameless lack of one. You choose.

Vijayvardhan, being launched by his own father, and directed by a debutante Poosalu Radhakrishna, plays Seenu, the irritating boy next door. He has a bowl-haircut and a bunch of neighbourhood rowdies for friends, and runs an eye-and-blood-bank in Chiranjeevi's name to justify the name of the movie. Chiranjeevi never makes an appearance, but the theme of his greatness is dragged by all fours, kicking and screaming, to reluctantly embellish this movie.

So Seenu is a Chiranjeevi fan, baava to Swati (Maansi), grandson to thaatha, and younger brother to annayya (Sivaji Raja) and his wife Supraja. Anjali (Aadin) gatecrashes into their house after an incident where Seenu becomes the cause of her missing her IAS exam, because he tried to punish her for running into Swati with her car. The family accepts Anjali and offers to take care of her till she takes her IAS exam again, since the only option is that her parents will force her into the marriage she was trying to escape by slipping into this career.

Anjali hangs around falling in love with Seenu, while he refuses to reciprocate. On Krishnashtami, he flings some gulaal into her eyes by mistake and she goes blind. While taking care of her and beginning to fall in love with her, he discovers she is not blind after all. Then they find out that she did not miss her IAS exam the day Seenu punished her, but lost her fiancé in a car accident that happened while he was trying to chase Seenu. So the gatecrashing and blindness was all a drama to get back at him.

It's not my sentence construction that's complicated up there, that's the story we are talking about. Most of the time, the audience is watching with goggle eyes because the movie is simply springing one bombshell after another. The epithet 'racy' for a movie assumes a new dimension with Seenugaadu…, as you hyperventilate just trying to concentrate. The only consolation is that a little way through, you kind of realize they are not going to give up. And you settle down into letting out a barely audibly squeak instead of undignified howls every time they punch you with a whammy.

The comedy track would have been hilarious with Venu Madhav playing a temple priest who turns into “Suparichitudu”, but he did exactly that in Chatrapati, which was a huge hit and therefore highly visible, and it's incredible judgement that they copied that again.

Poosalu Radhakrishna, you seem like a natural at 'shock value', so please do not try to labor along that angle anymore. Seenugaadu and its highly improbable storyline could well be that elusive shocking cure for amnesia that Indian movies have attempted to administer for ages with a thump on the head with a cudgel.

We suggest you stay away from this one – or, for an alternative experience, ride a Dakota in a hurricane. If you are lucky you will crash, an option you won't have with Seenugaadu.