Ramayya Vastavayya Review

Behind the Movie Ramayya Vastavayya: Director Harish Shankar is quite on a high with superb success of ‘Gabbar Singh’ has got the dates of Junior NTR with Dil Raju readily accepting the script. Let us see, how good this Ramayya is able to entertain us. 

In the Movie Ramayya Vastavayya: Story begins in Coorg with businessman Naga Bhushanam (Mukesh Rishi) attacked by two assailants (Ajay, Bharani) during his daughter’s engagement. Bringing the focus back to Hyderabad, there is Naga Bhushanam’s second daughter Aakarsha (Samanta) and grand ma Baby Shamili (Rohini Hattangadi). On the other side is youth batch of Nandu (Junior NTR) and his friends. It’s the same old game where Nandu falls in first look love with Aakarsha. Using all the wits and some silly funny episodes with grand ma, Nandu gets close to Aakarsha and travels to Coorg for attending her elder sister’s marriage. Here comes the sudden twist as Nandu, who is believed as savior of Naga Bhushanam family in turn kills all of them. Police Officer Avinash (Rao Ramesh) is on the duty to investigate the case easily cracks Nandu as the murderer. 

But, why Nandu is burning with revenge dates back to a flashback in fertile village of Aditya Puram and sweet girl Ammulu (Shruti Hasan). How Minister Umapathi (Kota) and his son Bikshapathi (‘Arundathi’ Ravi Shankar) along with Naga Bhushanam eyed on the village lands and what kind of bloodshed they created? What happened to the entire family of Nandu aka Ramayya? All this leads to action filled climax. 

Values of the Movie Ramayya Vastavayya: Openly and strictly warning on the very first line of my analysis, Junior NTR is the only positive factor for the film else this is a complete scrap. Harish Shankar’s magical touch of ‘Gabbar Singh’ is completely missed here. Neither there is proper screenplay nor novelty in direction. Story itself is pathetic, seen and seen numerous times from 1980s till date. Please do not ask about the worthless background and main musical score of SS Thaman. Except one or two new dance moments in first song, choreographers did not strain him much. Into the cinematography, Chota K Naidu’s brilliance was absent. Same is the case with Goutham Raju’s editing which looked shaky with abnormal bumps. Well, blaming it on producer Dil Raju…how a man with so much commitment and proper judgment accepted this sort of script and story is a doubt polluting my mind through out the film. Production values are also quite dull. 

Performance wise, Junior NTR is perfect in a youth look with casual costumes and easy going attitude guy. His mannerisms in romantic track with Samanta saved the first half. Once the interval twist is unlocked, Tarak goes back to his axe and knife techniques to see the massacre. Shruti Hasan was cute in second half but the voice dubbed for her character was invariant. Samanta has not got a role to perform. Thanks Harish took at least some care in making Sam look gorgeous on-screen with variety of modern attires. Ravi Shankar, a hyper sexual disorder villain comes late to leave his spark. Kota did well while Rao Ramesh’s interrogation approach is foolhardy. Nagineedu, Bharani, Ajay, Tanikella, Pragathi, Rohini Hattangadi, NTR’s friend batch etc just struck to their portions.

Out of the Movie Ramayya Vastavayya: The basic flaw of this movie lies in story and scripting. Where these two sections are completely hollow, Harish should have concentrated on adding some sparks with his dialogues and a little of special episodes. Such thing never happened as his attempt to sketch a good romantic track between NTR-Samanta using Rohini Hattangadi and legendary NTR has much more sunken. Then it is again a 1980-90’s model of drive leading to interval. Basically, Harish seems to have lost his intelligence and sophistication in elevating the heroism. As per my knowledge, only the first encounter between NTR-Ravi Shankar stood out as best in the movie. Rest is predictable and botched. 

Coming to Dil Raju, a strong believer in offering big emotional peaks to his stories and scripting style has given a sloppy hand. Composition and placement of songs, picturization of the same comes like enhancing our headache. In one line, this is not a project and this is not the quality audience expect from a spectacular combination of NTR-Dil Raju-Harish Shankar. The kind of over-confidence Dil Raju poured before media and on audio launch stage is surely a humbug to make quick bucks with strong opening collections. Even for NTR fans, there is lot more expected and you feel of falling short. Anyways, opening records are guaranteed and definitely, a long run is impossible here.              

Cinejosh Verdict of the Movie Ramayya Vastavayya: Ramayya… Maaku Emi Torture Ayya…

                                                              Cinejosh Rating: 2.5

                                                                                                       Reviewed by Srivaas