What's Behind
Puri Jagannath's son Akash Puri's Romantic has been hogging the media limelight as Puri promoted the film roping in almost all top stars of Tollywood. The film's promotions generated immense interest with the youthful content. Let us see what Romantic revealed on screen for movie lovers.
Story Review
Vasco De Gama (Akash Puri) loses his father, a sincere police officer at a young age and is raised by her grandmother Mary (Rama Prabha) in Goa. Vaso who leads a life of a roadside Romeo in his quest to build an orphanage for orphans to get easy and quick money treads through the illegal path and in the process becomes the dreaded mafia don. Even as Vaso rules Goa and in even gets attracted to a beautiful girl Monica (Ketika Sharma), Gang wars erupt in Goa for superiority, and sincere police officer Ramya Gowarikar (Ramya Krishna) decides to eliminate the mafia. Where this leads to and how it affected the lives of Vaso, Monica and Ramya should be watched in Romantic.
Artists, Technicians Review
Anil Paduri just directed the story provided by Puri Jagannath. On debut, he did not get a chance to pen the dialogues or screenplay also. So more than him, the result of Puri goes into the account of Puri. Puri Jagannath's story is nothing new. He came with a routine story and it has shades of all his old films starting from Pokiri to Ismart Shankar. As told by Puri, the film has shades of Idiot. Director Anil Paduri tried to give mass heroism to Akash Puri. However since Akash has no such image and still has young looks, it did not help his cause.
Anil Paduri did not even try to narrate the routine story in a novel and interesting manner. This diluted the film's main idea and so monotonous crept in testing the patience of the viewers. Many expected Romantic to be Romantic but romantic elements went missing as Gangster dominated it. The climax is planned in a different manner to prove the point that the lead pair does not believe in love but they have infatuation.
One can expect what to see on the screen when Puri Jagannath provides story, screenplay, and dialogues. The protagonist will have a careless attitude and he is infatuated with the heroine. So the dialogues will have Puri stamp on them. Everything turns routine and logic goes for a toss. But that is Puri and he trusted his instincts to elevate heroism in this way. Hero's dream of an orphan home looked dramatic and flashback too looked forced. Ramya Krishna's entry as a police officer is powerful but later she was shown as a helpless person begging the protagonist.
Akash Puri tried his best to do justice to the role He performed well and even enacted daredevil stunts. However, he looked too young to do this role. Had he done this after a couple of years, he would have made a better impact. He expressed well and came with good emotions. He is not getting the perfect role to reach the next level on the screen.
Ketika Sharma sizzled redhot and she with her glamor treat gives sleepless nights to viewers. She however did not concentrate on her expressions but she also did not get a chance to show her acting talent. Ramya Krishna did a role different from her earlier roles and her characterization to some extent is good. Uttej did a small but important role. Makarand Deshpande is wasted and others performed accordingly.
Sunil Kashyap's music is good. All the songs are well shot in a beautiful and romantic manner. However, songs placement impacted the tempo, especially in the second half. As the heroine is introduced only at the fag-end of the first half, Anil Paduri is forced to include romantic songs mostly in the second half. Sunil Kashyap elevated the scenes with his background music. Naresh Kancharana's cinematography is good but could have been good in crucial moments. Junaid Siddique's editing could have been better as there are many drags that tested the patience of the viewers. Production values are good.
Advantages
Ramya Krishna's performance
Ketika Sharma's red hot looks
Few dialogues
Disadvantages
Routine elements
Songs placement
Rating Analysis
Puri Jagannath for long has been trying to establish his son Akash Puri as a hero. After failing to establish him as a lover boy in films like Mehbooba, he decided to thrust him into the masses with youthful mass entertainer Romantic. However routine story, screenplay, narration and missing romantic formula but forced erotic and gangster drama in the name of romance misfired. Considering all these elements, CJ goes with a 2 rating for Romantic.