What's Behind
When Nithin teamed with Merlapaka Gandhi for the remake of Bollywood film Andha Dhun everyone got surprised. The film titled Maestro generated interest with the trailer and songs. The film is streaming on Disney+Hotstar from September 17, skipping the theatrical release. Let us see what Maestro offered to movie lovers.
Story Review
A blind young man Arun (Nithin) who plays the piano in Goa, aspires to succeed by composing a unique and sensational tune. In order to do so, he tries to buy a piano but due to a shortage of money, works part-time playing the piano at a restaurant run by Pedro (Balakrishna) father of Sophia aka Sophie (Nabha Natesh).
Finally, he hits a jackpot when yesteryear top actor Mohan (Naresh) invites him for a personal concert at his house on his wedding anniversary to surprise his beautiful and young wife Simran (Tamannaah). Arun goes to Mohan's house only to receive a shock of his life. What is the shock and where it will lead to and how Inspector, Ravindra aka Bobby (Jissu Sengupta) is connected to it, decides the proceedings of Maestro.
Artists, Technicians Review
Director Merlapaka Gandhi stayed true to the original. He started the proceedings narrating the story scene by scene except for changing minute details like locations to Goa from Pune. The narration starts interestingly with the introduction of Nitin quite well. However, the introduction of Sophie and then the evolution of her character got diluted from the original. She just remained a showpiece for the entire part of the film. Sticking to the changes, much to the surprise of all, none of the characters speak in the local language in Goa and for that viewers are left to wonder why to change the location in the first place. But there are few scenes like Naresh and Tamannaah coming with natural and realistic performances. The first half generates interest a little bit with racy narration and screenplay and the beautiful introduction song. the interval bang increases curiosity to some extent.
When viewers expected the second half to thrill, it turned out to be slow and routine and ended up testing the patience of the viewers. After the dragging narration where the screenplay fell apart, the film ends as it ended in the original. Nitin tried his best and he performed well in the role of a blind person. He looked realistic and natural when he performed as a blind man but faking it looked artificial. Tamannaah reprised the role played by Tabu in the original. Tamannaah attracted with her oomph and also showed her cunning and evil nature and came with good expressions. Nabha Natesh got limited scope to perform and she is ok in her role. Jishshu Sengupta performed well in the role of the police officer. Harshavardhan as a doctor did an okayish role and Ananya Nagalla as Pavitra is good. Others performed their roles accordingly.
Mahati Swara Sagar's music is good. The first song has been shot well and the peppy number attracts all. He elevated the scenes with his background music. Editing of SR. Shekhar is ok but could have been better especially in the second half. The cinematography of Yuvraj beautified the film capturing the exotic Goan locations in an attractive manner. Production values are good.
Advantages
Nithin, Tamannaah
Cinematography
BGM
Disadvantages
Screenplay
Editing
Missing emotional connect
Rating Analysis
Nitin and Merlapaka Gandhi joined hands for Maestro to recreate the magic of Adha Dhun. In their attempts, they succeeded only to some extent and as they are aware of it, they said comparisons will not do any good. But when makers do remakes, comparisons are bound to happen and in the case of Maestro, the same thing happens. Maestro couldn't recreate the magic of Andha Dhun and even if the people watched the film without comparisons, the second half completely went for a toss. The dark comedy went completely missing. Considering all these observations, CJ goes with a 2.75 rating for Maestro.