Cast : Ram, Iliyana, Sayaji Shinde, Venu Madhav, MS Narayana, Vidya & Rama Prabha
Director : YVS Chowdary
Music Director : Chakri
Producer : YVS Chowdary
Story / Screenplay : YVS Chowdary
Cinematographer : Bharani K Dharan
This will remind one of Sooraj Bharjatiya or Sanjay Leela Bhansali for the number of songs and the rich way they were portrayed. In the recent days there was no other film that had so many songs and such good picturization. Devadasu, which has no affiliation what so ever with Sarat Chandra’s Devadas has a 3 hour run time. The combination of the above mentioned factors along with a thin story line gives mixed feelings.
Ram and Iliyana, the lead pair who played Devadas (Dev) and Bhanumati, tried to live in their roles. As with many other stories, Dev is an orphan and goes to Govt college. Bhanumati is the daughter of an American senator Laxminarayana (Shiyaji Shinde). They fall in love. And this is not liked by the heroine’s father and Dev takes it as a challenge. What follows then is an attempt by Dev to win his sweetheart who is in US.
Ram and Iliyana did a fine job in their roles. Ram has good ease in all the departments especially dances. Though he is new to the camera, he did emotional scenes decently. However, one noticable thing in his expressions or body language is resemblances with JD, Pawan and YVS’s find Aditya Om. Ram should take care of that. Iliyana is a definite threat to heroines looking for top slot. She has got everything to be heading that way. One aspect where there needs to be improvement is lip movement. There were a few scenes were lip synching problem can be seen with her. That could just be the technical problem also.
One more character/role that impresses in the film is of Shiyaji Shinde’s. He did an excellent job in his role. Especially in the second half, his role offered him plenty of scope and the actor utilized it to the core. For eg when he bad mouths the hero on phone, and the scenes with his mother (done by Rama Prabha). Comedy worked out great in his role. MS Narayana, Venu Madhav, Sheni, Vidya, Sanjay Raichuri did their roles to content.
The story line is thin lined. It is almost a risky venture to expand it to three hours of screen time. YVS Chowdary handled that very well. He handled the screenplay and direction departments. There are a few times when it feels a bit boring but overall, the film is not bad. What excels in the film are the songs and their picturization. YVS always has a trademark name associated with songs and he kept up his standards. Few songs composed by Chakri are decent. One song done on the parody of Mayadari sinnodu is interesting. Nuvvanten istam, Nijam ga, bangaram songs are good.
In the first half, it feels like a song coming up every 5 minutes. This paves the way of feeling a bit boring at a few times. Then as the film enters the second half, it gets tight with narration. One of the reasons could be that the comedy done in the second half clicked well. It is all situational comedy. Production values are pretty good and the film had rich look.