1 Nenokkadine Review

Behind the Movie 1 Nenokkadine: Enormous hype, huge publicity and more than all Mahesh Babu’s combination with Sukumar is the main pulling factor for audience to theaters. On a nearing festive holiday season, let us see how far ‘1’ lived up to our expectations. 

In the Movie 1 Nenokkadine: Story starts with an exasperating dream for Rock Star Gautham (Mahesh Babu) about his childhood. Into present, Gautham attends the Music concert and goes on for chase of villain Antonio (Kelly Dorjee) while Journalist Sameera (Kriti Sanon) shoots the entire episode. To everyone’s shock, there is no one like Antonio and Gautham is declared of suffering with psycho-neurological disease of illusion. However, Gautham’s soul is haunted by three faces (Pradeep Rawat, Naazar and Kelly Dorjee), who killed his parents in childhood. To recover the childhood memories and reconnect himself with past life, Gautham moves to Goa away from crowds. Sameera too follows him where a romantic bond is developed. Before Gautham begins to admit about the disease, few shocking incidents reveal on real existence of above mentioned three people linked to Gautham’s school days and family life in London and Belfast. Both Gautham and Sameera step in London to untangle the past. 

Values & Out of the Movie 1 Nenokkadine: The whole and sole credit (either positive or negative) of the film should be given only to Sukumar. This is a convoluted story with complicated screenplay. Matching the illusionary events in hero’s life with real happenings is itself a new and confusing idea. This is where Sukumar’s geometrical and computing techniques elevated the substance. Twists and turns placed at unequal intervals have surely deterred the final flavor. Rathnavelu’s cinematography was a good work with lots of aerial shots catching the beauty of London, Belfast and Goa. Then, it’s Karthik Srinivas editing required lot of sharpness to show the edge in Sukku’s style of narration. In key episodes, the editing was fine but overall, lot of things needed to be trimmed. DSP’s background was most of the time filled with theme music and for songs, he did a better job. Peter Heins stunt composition was new-fangled, especially the boat chase. Prem Rakshit’s choreography was also new on Mahesh Babu. Technically, the film has no flaws and is a complete quality product. Production values of 14 Reels were mind blowing and every pie spent was visible on screen.

Performance wise, this is new characterization for Mahesh Babu. Obviously, it’s the disorientation and dither in his role is passed even to audience in theater. With a well toned body, Mahesh has blown a new angle of performance in him. He is just impeccable. Sometimes, we have no clue on where the story is heading and what is this Sukku screenplay? The romantic track in Goa was a complete flop show with nothing like chemistry between Mahesh and Kriti. Frustration builds up among viewers till interval block when the first legitimate twist mixed with good writing of Sukku ends the first half. Kriti Sanon is a drawback with weak look and annoying dubbing voice. Posani as Cab Driver in London tried to infuse some laughter. In fact, ‘1 Nenokkadine’ lacks in fun which has become synonymous to entertainment for Telugu audience. Of the rest, Naazar was fine while Pradeep Rawat, Kelly Dorjee, Sayaji Shinde, Srinivas Reddy, Anu Hasan, Anand has nothing much to do. Mahesh Babu’s son Gautham was a special attraction in childhood role of hero Gautham’s character. Item song of Sophie Chowdary was also just average.

From any standards, Sukumar needs to tone down his brainpower. He is a true genius attempted to change the priorities and definition of Telugu movie watching. In simple, this is like a Hollywood product served to Tollywood audience. Lots of judgment, bundles of intelligence, loads of mental alertness etc are needed to bear this film with abundant patience. While one can definitely praise IQ levels of Sukku, even viewers have to match his caliber and skill to decide the commercial penetration of product. May be, for B & C center audience, ‘1 Nenokkadine’ is like a tail-end Indian batsman playing to South African bowlers deadly beamers. Nearly three to four mind blowing twists are true highlights, rest are bothersome setbacks. The way climax has been drawn out lengthy with Golden Rice concept did not gel well into the story. Not to underestimate yet how many people sitting in theater will understand the jargon of ‘Green Revolution 2’?  

Time for Sukku to reanalyze the mode of scripting… if his ingenious skill is used with subtlety…he can bring a change in Telugu cinema else Sukku should live in his own illusionary world just like his irresolute hero characterizations. This is not a film meant for Mahesh Babu or such heavy budget. An experiment of this kind can be appreciated, if made with a shoestring budget and an upcoming hero. Opening collections will be mind blowing. Problem is how far lower class audience are to encircle this subject and enfold the mysterious psychological brilliance in Sukku because ‘1 Nenokkadine’ is purely a director’s film with Super Star like Mahesh Babu in a new avatar.  

Cinejosh Verdict of 1 Nenokkadine: Wow… Watch it for Mahesh and Technical Grandeur

                                                                            Reviewed by Srivaas