After facing consecutive flops, Karthi scored a decent hit with last movie Khakee. He has now come up with new film Chinna Babu directed by Pandiraj and produced by his elder brother Suriya who played a cameo. Let’s see whether Chinna Babu will provide him a commercial hit?
Krishnam Raju aka Chinna Babu (Karthi) is the only son of Rudra Raju (Sathyaraj) who has five daughters. Unlike others, Chinna Babu selects farming profession and takes care of all the family. CB wants to marry girl of his choice aka girlfriend Neerada (Sayyeshaa Saigal) but needs the approval from his family members. Meanwhile, Chinna Babu’s rival Shatru looks for division in CB family to kill him. How, Chinna Babu sorts out all the issues to marry Neerada forms crux of the story…
Chinna Babu is purely a village backdrop film stuffed with loud dialogues, preachy discourses, heavy dose family drama and mass elements. The film indulges itself too much and becomes progressively overdramatic. There are a lot of tears and over the top drama in second half though first half was entertaining. While the names and relationships in family are complex to end us up with lots of confusion about characters. Chinna Babu is not completely about farmers and their problems but it deals with the subject of a joint-family and differences leading to division. Dialogues are convincingly organic and humorous helping us stay engaged with narration.
Cinematography by Velraj enriches the story-telling, wherein editor gets average marks for including many over the board drama scenes in second half. Production values of 2D Entertainment are neat.
About performances, Karthi steals the show as a proud farmer hopeful with the pity state of agriculture in country. His role as a down-to-earth family man gave chance to showcase his acting prowess. Sathyaraj is not the right choice as his role has constraints. Sayyeshaa looked pretty in the role of Karthi’s love interest. Soori who disappointed many times with his overacting has provided ample entertainment with comedy timing. Suriya shines in a cameo. All the other huge cast played their parts with Tamil faces.
Karthi
First Half
Comedy Bits
Outdated Story
Second Half
Tamil Nativity
Excess Drama
Predictable Screenplay
First thing to be informed is, don’t miss the beginning episodes of CB where entire family members of Sathya Raj are introduced in a funny manner. You will hardly find a person like Chinna Babu in real life who gives lectures about farmers and advices youth to take up farming or politics as profession. Pandiraj narrated these proceedings in humorous way with his writing which is actually the saving grace for an otherwise done and dusted story. Like an ordinary youth, he too follows his girl and love track is regular. Director forcibly included villain batch just to create disturbances within Chinna Babu’s family and make narrative a commercial entertainer. It’s again a routine substance. Movie heads to intermission with two big tasks ahead for Chinna Babu.
Into latter half, Chinna Babu makes his efforts to convince his sisters, brother-in-laws and nieces who oppose him. We feel bored amd lethargic in many places as drama goes overboard with repetitive and weak episodes. Neerada misunderstadings for no big reason is a silly stuff. Family meetings and pre-climax episode where Chinna Babu’s greatness is told are again over dramatic.
Overall, Chinna Babu is an average entertainer targeted at families who takes pleasure in drama films. While first half will keep amused, those with rock heart patience can only bear the second half with family drama. The film’s Box Office performance depends on how youth will receive this dubbing film as CJ goes with 2.5 stars.