Stars Not In Sync With Mood Of The Nation

Tollywood takes pride in churning out the highest number of films in the country. Filmmakers from across the country look at Tollywood in awe and wonder how they are able to come out with so many number of films at a breakneck pace. 

Some rave about the professionalism and punctuality in Tollywood. Of late many Tollywood films have been remade into Bollywood and Bollywood top stars scored blockbusters with the remakes. 

Despite all this, many feel that Tollywood is not in sync with the mood of the nation. While Bollywood time and again connect chords with the people touching on their emotions by taking films like Border, Rang De Basanti, 1971, LOC Kargil, Deewar, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero, Legend of Bhagat Singh, Uri and also touched upon contemporary issues in films like Pad Man and Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Tollywood filmmakers are busy churning out commercial potboilers.

Top stars in Bollywood like Amir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar show interest in doing films on contemporary issues. However, Tollywood stars and the makers for the fear of failure do not think of risk-taking. NTR came with Major Chandrakanth and Krishna Vamsi attracted with Khadgam. Puri Jagannath dared to be different with universal appeal in his films like Businessman and Mehbooba, but for some reason, Mehbooba failed. 

Though actors like Balakrishna, Allu Arjun and others starred as army officers, their roles are not realistic and instead shown to do gravity defying stunts or the story deviated after the army backdrop. This is the case when they forgot other burning issues like Nirbhaya case, corruption, scams and political problems or farmers causes. 

This is in stark contrast to Kollywood filmmakers like Shankar who touched on the contemporary issues with powerful take in his films like Gentleman, Indian, Mudhalwan, Anniyan, Sivaji etc. 

Of late there is a sea change in the thought process of the stars and the makers and hope Tollywood will change for the good. Films like PSV Garudavega, Goodhachari had universal appeal and Chiranjeevi is now coming with a patriotic entertainer Sye Raa. Upcoming entertainer Mallesham is generating tremendous interest and one wonder what would have been the effect had some star hero played the lead role in Mallesham.

Tollywood stars and the makers are under the impression that the thought process of North and South movie lovers are completely different and they do not appreciate stories from the south. If that was the case Bollywood films like Uri wouldn't have become a success. Akshay Kumar wouldn't have made Padman, inspired by Muruganantham, a Tamilian.