Naayak Review

Behind the Movie Naayak: The festival season of Pongal will begin with Ramcharan's Naayak released today in the direction of VV Vinayak. Already the success of SS Thaman's music raised expectations and now here comes the movie. Let us see, how far Vinayak was victorious in projecting this Leader?

In the Movie Naayak: Story begins in Kolkata with Siddharth Naayak (Ramcharan) saving his followers from the hands of local don Raawath (Pradeep Rawat) and his men. Shifting to Hyderabad, Cherry (Ramcharan) is a software engineer working in uncle Jilebi's (Brahmi) company. Situationally, he falls in love with Madhu (Kajal Agarwal) who is the sister of local goon Gandi Babji (Rahul Dev) and there is also uncle Shukla (Jayaprakash Reddy). On the other side CBI wants to track down Naayak but they end up catching Cherry at Kumbh Mela. However, there is altogether a different flashback for Naayak and his sister (Surekha), brother-in-law (Rajiv Kanakala) and maradalu Nandini (Amala Paul) who has rivalry with Raawath. Why is Kolkata considering Naayak as a leader? How did Cherry and Naayak put an end to Raawath? How did CBI Officer (Ashish Vidyarthi) and his sub-ordinate (MS Narayana) solve this case of Naayak?

Values of the Movie Naayak: Simply speaking, Naayak is not a movie of Ramcharan. This one belongs to Vinayak and troop of comedy artists (Brahmi, MS Narayana, Posani, JP and Rahul Dev) worked. Story and screenplay is just the rehash of Vinayak’s past hit films. Aakula Siva’s dialogues were hilarious and particularly, comedy punches are on the spot. Direction wise, Vinayak has taken too many liberties to elevate the heroism in Ramcharan which unfortunately did not gel well with the story. Thaman’s music is good for couple of songs (Deewana and Yeh Naayak) and background was regularly loud. Chota K Naidu’s cinematography and Gowtham Raju’s editing was just conventional. Production values of DVV Danayya were also good.

Performance wise Ramcharan has improved in dances and action scenes while he could not deliver the emotions required in key scenes. Especially dialogue delivery was so weak. Kajal Agarwal and Amal Paul were for name, glamor and songs sake. Pradeep Rawat’s villainy was also boring. All the scenes dealt on Brahmanandam, MS Narayana, JP, Rahul Dev and Posani were thoroughly engaging. Among others Rajeev Kanakala, Ashish Vidyarthi, Kota, Surekha, Ahuthi Prasad, Tanikella, Sudha etc were just to their small portions.

Out of the Movie Naayak: These days for any mass film to succeed at BO, there is a necessity to follow particular formula. Vinayak hasn’t tested anything innovative here. In fact, he relied on a stupid storyline which doesn’t have any strength. This even affected characterization of Charan. Adding more to the wounds is loose screenplay which has no sufficient substance to elevate the heroism in Charan on par with Chiranjeevi in ‘Stalin’ or ‘Tagore.’ This is one area where Vinayak has gone overboard burdening Charan’s charisma and stature. Even emotional depth and capability required to deliver strong action scenes missed making the key scenes go spineless. The dual characters played by Charan have nothing to differentiate, neither styling wise nor performance wise.   

So, savior for this movie is only and only comedy portions which provide enough refreshment. Simply, Naayak without these comedy artists will be flavorless film. Thanks to an unique trend begin by Srinu Vytla which Vinayak has also continued. Never to miss, we also find the shades ‘Adurs,’ ‘Lakshmi’ and many more. 

For Mega Fans, this could be a partial treat but for others this could be just a moderate film rolled with the same old formula. Commercially, ‘Naayak’ might go for a whitewash of all the opening Tollywood top records. Long run is surely doubtful because we have SVSC and few others arriving. For audience who just enjoy mass flicks with no logics, you can go for this. As Sankranti season is on, we will see new colors at BO and ‘Naayak’ will also have its share. 

Cinejosh Verdict of the Movie Naayak: Charan is Not The Leader – Comedy is Leader Here.

Cinejosh Rating:   3/5                                                     

                                                                                           Reviewed by Srivaas