Balupu Review

Behind the Movie Balupu: Mass Maharaja Raviteja is in a stage of disappearance from Telugu film industry with series of disasters shaking the career. Teamed with director Gopichand Malineni, the movie of Balupu is released today with glamour quotient of Shruti and Anjali as major highlights. Let us see, how far Balupu was successful in bringing the lost glory of Raviteja?

In the Movie Balupu: Story begins with Bank Recovery Agent Ravi (Raviteja) and his dad Nana (Prakashraj) living a peaceful happy life in Bangalore. The only worry of Nana is to see Ravi get married to a beautiful girl. On the other track, Vizag Purna (Ashutosh Rana) and his batch of goons are burning with vengeance in the search of old enemies Shankar and Nanji. 

Into the life of Ravi enters Shruthi (Shruthi Hasan) and her uncle Crazy Mohan (Brahmi) who loves to fool the public around with their crazy acts. As Ravi wanted to teach a lesson of life for Shruthi, the relation turns romantic but Shruthi is already engaged to arrogant guy Rohit (Adivi Sesh). Once Nana arranges for the engagement of Shruthi and Ravi, here comes the twist as Vizag Purna enters in scene to reveal the actual identity of Ravi and Nana as local Vizag rowdy sheeters Balupu Shankar and Nanaji respectively. 

What is the actual flashback connecting Balupu Shankar, Nanaji, her daughter Dr. Anjali (Anjali) and Vizag Purna? What happened to Shruthi kidnapped by Purna? All these form the rest.

Values of the Movie Balupu: Story of Balupu is old pickled and tested indefinite number of times on Telugu screen. Gopichand Malineni has cleverly managed to do the magic with screenplay by unlocking the crucial twists at even intervals. More than all, it is the funny treatment and right mix of humorous dialogues from Kona Venkat and KS Ravindra groomed the total output into an entertaining package. Jayanan Vincent’s camera work showed the grandeur with lavish budget strikingly visible throughout. Editing of Gautham Raju could have been better to decrease the lag in second half. Yet again SS Thaman came up with trademark tunes canned beautifully. Background score was really effective and even little innovative. Production values of PVP are superbly top notch with arresting luxury in each frame.

Performance wise, Raviteja was into his accustomed mass and energetic characterization. He well maintained the contrasting shades between Ravi and Balupu Shankar with varied costumes, body language and controlled flow of arrogance. Though dances are not so great, comedy timing had the color of ‘Don Seenu.’ Into the rest, Shruthi Hasan is damn dazzling standing as the centerfold for entire glamour portion of movie. She has a definite ease in carrying out the glam doll roles. Anjali comes only in second half with a character of purity. Prakashraj also offered a commendable conduct in sync with Raviteja. Interval action episode with these two is blown out. Comedy by Brahmanandam with Gangnam style dance is a full length role audience can easily cheer with. Ali as Psychologist Dr. Savithri is hilarious to an extent. Villainy of Ashutosh Rana was adequate while Adivi Sesh opened with lot of crudeness is suppressed later on. Raviteja friends’ batch of Srinivas Reddy, Raghu and others are okay like Naazar, Brahmaji, Rao Ramesh, Supreet, Aditya Menon etc. Item song of Lakshmi Rai is also cool.                                

Out of the Movie Balupu: Going by the pathetic and poor form of Raviteja, this movie shall do a sea of change for his dying career. Although Balupu is not a total phase changing film, there are plenty of positives to search for Mass Maharaja. We cannot expect anything original or inventive when the story, screenplay and dialogues are handled by Kona Venkat in team. Pre climax episodes of spoofing Kanchana and Prema Katha Chithram might be acceptable for a B grade film but for Raviteja this is not an intelligent idea, same like Jumping Japang used in climax to hinder the flow.

First half has nothing do with main plot as director telescoped only on generating the comedy using Brahmi, Shruthi and Ravi. In fact, these scenes could have been still catchier because the laughter quotient was spread only patch wise. This made the overall flow appear like a sine graph. With actual content in second half, Gopichand steered comfortably to climax by mixing the drama, action, comedy and violence in moderate levels. Few sparks which did not turn into blast moments are imitation of Bandla Ganesh by a Bar Attender, usage of Gabbar Singh footage, Raviteja emulating Balakrishna’s style of public speeches etc.

In totality, Gopichand was able to satisfy the audience to an extent which isn’t matched with the actual caliber of Raviteja. So, Balupu has tasty munchies here and there but this could not make a complete meal. Presence of Shruthi and Anjali added a fresh flavor. Go with Raviteja’s last two years of master piece duds in mind, you may come out satisfying. Let us wait for the commercial verdict of public in next one week because a lot depends on how B & C centers receive this. 

Cinejosh Verdict of Balupu: Lot Better for Raviteja than His Past Collapses!  

                                           Cinejosh Rating: 2.75/5

                                                                                       Reviewed by Srivaas