Natasimha Balakrishna is known to score blockbusters shaking the box office during Sankranti. He is coming to show his power and break box office records turning Veera Simha Reddy on 12 January 2023. Veera Simha Reddy's OTT rights have been bagged by Disney+Hotstar for a whopping amount and the streaming will be done after three months. Balakrishna's first look, powerful dialogues, and dances in the teasers and trailers became the talking point. The film is directed by Gopichand Malineni and let us find out how Balakrishna who stunned all with his previous entertainer Akhanda, entertained as Veera Simha Reddy.
Veera Simha Reddy's story is about the life of a father and son in Rayalaseema and how they deal with the faction and family rivalry and ensure the development of the people of the region. Jai Simha Reddy (Balakrishna) is the doting son of his mother Meenakshi (Honey Rose) who runs a restaurant in Istanbul, Turkey. He falls in love with a beautiful girl Eesha ( Shruti Haasan), the daughter of businessman Jayaram (Murali Sharma). On the verge of his marriage, he comes to know the secret about his father Veera Simha Reddy (Balakrishna). Why his mother hides his father's truth from him and what it got to do with Musali Madugu Pratap Reddy (Duniya Vijay), Bhanumati (Varalakshmi Sarath Kumar), Shekar (Naveen Chandra), businessman Rajagopal (Sachin Khedekar) in Pulicharla, Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh form the rest of the story.
Balakrishna got the roles tailormade for him. Viewers have seen him in such roles earlier and for umpteen times. But Balakrishna for some reason decided to give the green signal to the project despite his roles being routine and also the story offered nothing new. He danced with full energy and performance stunts in a powerful manner. His dialogues, mannerisms, and screen presence is nothing new but he performed well.
Shruti Haasan played the female lead. She is gorgeous and gave ample beauty treat on screen in the songs. She competed with Balakrishna with mass moves. She got a silly role to the core and her dialogues are also comical. Honey Rose, a Malayalee actor who made her debut as Balakrishna's wife, performed well and she proved her acting talent. Varalakshmi Sarathkumar stole the show with stunning and powerful emotions. She made a stunning impact with her screen presence and she performed well during the pre-climax.
Duniya Vijay in his first Telugu film looked menacing on screen. He made his presence felt locking horns with Balakrishna. But for all the hype, his character turned into a caricature later. Chandrika Ravi sizzled in a special song and she entertained masses with her looks. Naveen Chandra played an important role. Brahmanandam, Ali,Sapthagiri,Sachin Khedekar,Ravishankar, Murali Sharma performed according to their roles.
The story of Veera Simha Reddy readied by director Gopichand Malineni offered nothing new. Younger Balakrishna is introduced highlighting his love for his mother in Istanbul. This set the stage to elevate the heroism of Balakrishna to another level. However, in order to introduce the heroine Shruti Haasan, the director pulled back and some silly scenes follow testing the patience of the viewers. Shruti Haasan's role looked dumb and silly. Gopichand Malineni concentrated on highlighting the beauty of Shruti Haasan rather than her character.
Gopichand Malineni spent most of the time concentrating on elevating the heroism of Balakrishna to another level and included many high-octane scenes featuring Balakrishna. The stunts are choreographed quite well but most of the time, Balakrishna is enacting similar types of stunts for the most part of the film. The first half ends in a routine and monotonous manner with predictable narration and people walk out to experience better second half with one interesting twist.
But the interval twist in the first half diluted the film's tempo and from then on the entire second half though loaded with emotions failed to take off to the next level. During the climax, intensity levels increase with the presence of Balakrishna and finally the film ends in a routine and monotonous way. Gopichand Malineni's story is extremely weak and he tried to make up for it with the heroic elevations of Balakrishna. The screenplay is outdated but silly most of the time and the direction left a lot to be desired.
Thaman's music for a few songs is foot-tapping and loaded with mass vibes. The songs are shot in a beautiful way and choreographed with mass moves. His background music is ok but most of the time it turned extremely loud. It however failed to give the desired impact. Rishi Punjabi's cinematography is natural and beautiful. He showed the Rayalaseema region in a realistic way and Turkey's locations in an aesthetic manner. Naveen Nooli's editing could have been far better. There are many routine scenes that affected the film and could have been done away with it. However, had he done so, most of the film's scenes would have been done away with. Dialogues penned by Sai Madhav Burra had few political vibes. The dialogues targeted the current political scenario. Except for those dialogues, most of the other dialogues are written in a convenient and haphazard manner and at times missed logic and failed to connect the dots, and did not justify the intensity and intent of the characters. Production values of Mythri Movie Makers are rich.
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Altogether, Expectations soared on Balakrishna's Veera Simha Reddy as he is coming after scoring a resounding hit with Akhanda and rewriting the records at the box office. Gopichand Malineni's direction left many craving for wholesome entertainment during Sankranti. However, Gopichand Malineni disappointed all with Veer Simha Reddy output as he did not work on the story. He just tried to elevate the heroism of Balakrishna in dual roles and it did not come with any twists. Everyone passes through the motions and Gopichand Malineni's screenplay failed to connect chords. It lacked a realistic feel and the entire film tested the patience of the viewers. The direction followed the same template and did not try any deviations. Overall, Veera Simha Reddy offered nothing new and instead offered routine product. People are left wondering why Balakrishna is doing such a routine mass masala entertainers continuously. Considering all these elements, Cinejosh goes with a 2.5 Rating for Veera Simha Reddy.