Mogudu Review

Moogudu:

          This glycerine – ketchup cocktail is a disaster.  The ticket is a disguised unrelentless tornado on your nerves.  Melodramatic to a fault, everything about this Krishna Vamsee film is loud.  From high decibel speeches, the bleu maroon gaudy colours, songs pouring in out of the script, this is a ‘family entertainer’ at its primitive clichéd abyss. The way people keep slapping one another vigorously, you wonder if it is some new technique by Duncan Fletcher to improve drives and cuts for professional cricketers.

          In an attempt to present a picture perfect family Vamsee gives you a loud family video instead. Anjaneya Prasad (Rajendra Prasad) is the elder patriarch who has three daughters (of cotton sari, synthetic sari and jeans) with non descript  husbands in line and a motley group of children.  The son of the family is the eternal bachelor Ram (Gopichand) who ducks at the thought of matrimony and girls. He has a vague job at the Benz and is the only person exempt from wearing uniforms. His anti girls stance draws many a suspicion and a few crude jokes rightly sound censored. Cupid strikes when he sees Raja Rajeshwari (Tapsee) at a performance. Smitten he just cant keep his thoughts away. Soon his family gets the matrimonial pic in place. She is the daughter of Chamundeshwari (Roja) and grand daughter of  Bhuvaneshwari (Gitanjali). Dad is Naresh. At the wedding a very minor difference of opinion leads to a slap marathon and a divorce by mutual consent. All is well that ends, you may believe, but you have just reached mid way.

          Off to Mauritius our hero runs into old friend Jo (Shradha Das). Also following him is Rajeshwari who gets jealous acts like a wild cat and attempts even suicide to get back her lover.  Fair enough and  you seem to breath freely in the hope that alls well that ends well, but the Director has more devious happenings to unveil.  The hitherto glycerine drenched script decides to head to the ketchup pages and the mayhem that follows sends you searching for a stop button. Almost at the end and in the midst of this violence, Ram echoes the view of the audience : Inka naku opika ledu. 

          The cast has every opportunity to be over dramatic. None disappoints. Strangely this Telugu flick is without a comedy track. Normally the sons in law are script space for the comedians. Conspicuous by their absence, the script seems deficient in the context of the normal expectations. Comedy and relief comes in the form of a cameo from Venu Madhav who gives the movie a few moments. Veteran Rajedra Prasad, does go over board at times. It is Naresh who gives a polished restrained performance. The lead players: Gopichand and Tapsee are at sea when it comes to emotional demands and thus make an ideal pair.  Will some one please subtly suggest to Roja that it is not a thin line that divides the loud from the emotional?  It is a big divider.  Watch it only if you enjoy being caught in a dramatic over kill.

L.Ravichander.