Movie : Ishq
Director : Vikram K Kumar
Producer : Vikram Goud
Cast : Nitin, Nithya Menen, Ajay, Sindhu Tolani
Rahul (Nitin) falls in love with Priya (Nitya Menen) when he first sees her at a traffic island in Delhi on his route to airport.
She turns out to be his co-passenger on a Hyderabad flight and due to bad weather the flight lands in Goa. In Goa, love blossoms. When they land in Hyderabad, Rahul gets to know that her brother (Ajay) is the guy with whom he has had some issues. Rest of the story is how this `Ishq` wins in the end.
Despite many flops to his credit, Nitin starrer Ishq generated good buzz thanks to its music and the presence of great technicians like P.C.Sriram and also its pleasant trailers. The film is directed by Vikram Kumar, whose last Hindi film, 13B, was a huge hit. There is freshness in the film, in performances of lead actors and in music.
Yet, Ishq fails to capitalize it completely.
Nitin`s playfulness, and the good chemistry between Nitin and Nithya have made the film interesting in the first half. But as there is no strong conflict in the story, the second half meanders inconsistently. It gets predictable too at times. Only in the penultimate scenes, the film comes back on to the right track. Many scenes defy logic too.
The best part of the film is its romantic scenes in the first half. The episodes at the airport and Goa are pretty good. On the whole, the film is a decent romantic movie.
Nitin is cool and casual. He has matured and delivers a good performance. Nitya Menen once again proves that she has a reservoir full of sassy expressions. Both of them share good chemistry. It is their `jodi` that is a major asset to the movie.
Ajay in a rather different negative character comes out with good performance too. Ali provides some laughter in the second half. Satya Krishnan, Nagineedu, Rohini, and others in their brief roles are okay.
Renowned cinematographer P C Sriram`s frames, as usual, are excellent, bringing a touch of class to the movie. But his beautiful cinematography is spoiled by processing/grading at Gemini Labs in a more than couple of scenes.
Music by Anup Ruebens and Aravind Shankar is refreshing. Ramesh Samala`s dialogues are neat and good. The subtle humor in dialogues has worked out well for the movie. Editor Srikara Prasad should have pepped up the pace and trimmed the run time.
Director Vikram Kumar has brought out good output from technicians and lead actors but his screenplay is not consistent. He has tried to give a new twist to the cliched scenes.
Pre-interval romantic episodes, endearing lead pair and their chemistry, and good dialogues make the movie interesting. Despite faulty second half, Ishq, on the whole, is worth a watch.