Balupu Review

Balupu Movie Review

• Runtime: 2 hours 30 minutes

• Cast: Ravi Teja, Sruthi Hassan, Anjali, Brahmanandam, Prakash Raj and others..!

• Music: Thaman SS

• Producer: Prasad Vara Potluri

• Director: Gopichand Malineni

• Banner : PVP Cinema

• Release Date : 28/6/2013

Punchline : A regular action entertainment movie - Mass Maharaja Style.

Balupu follows the routine storyline that has been almost beaten to death by the industry by now. The story has nothing new to offer the audience and gets sort of predictable after a while. The combinations in this movie have generated great buzz since the time the trailer hit the internet. Gopichand Malineni-Ravi Teja after their successful outing with ‘Don Seenu’, Thaman SS-Ravi Teja who have hit albums like ‘Kick’ and ‘Mirapakai’. Also of interest is the first time pairing of Ravi Teja with both Anjali and Sruthi. The teasers grabbed a lot of eyeballs and produced a great turnout for the first day.

Plot :

Ravi (Ravi Teja) is a bank collection agent cum your friendly neighborhood hero-to-the-rescue. The movie starts off routinely enough with a damsel in distress situation and the hero rushing to rescue as usual. Ravi’s father (Prakash Raj) is anxious to get him married away soon. Ravi refuses on grounds that he hasn’t found a girl who attracts him yet. Sruthi (Sruthi Hassan) is on a crazy thrill adventure experience with her uncle ‘Crazy’ Mohan (Brahmanandam). In the course of one of her thrill pranks she hurts one of Ravi’s friends and causes him to retaliate forcefully. A game of tease-the-girl ensues. A fairly good comedy track takes place between Ravi and ‘Crazy’ Mohan.

Sruthi and Ravi both realize their errors when Ravi’s father decides to marry his son to Sruthi and meets her father (Nasser) to ask for her hand. Sruthi really falls for Ravi when she realizes his good heart. Here we learn Sruthi is already engaged to Rohit (Adivi Sesh). Rohit seeks the help of his uncle (Ashutosh Rana) to resolve his marriage issue. His uncle intervenes and discovers that Ravi and his father are the people he has been hunting for years. Ravi is revealed to be ‘Kancherapalem Shankar’ from Vizag in a former life. What happened in Vizag? Why is Ravi being hunted? What is his relationship to Anjali? Will Ravi be able to marry the girl? The second half answers these questions.

Synopsis :

As mentioned earlier there is nothing new on offer here. The story line is routine, the screenplay is patchy in places. However, the movie lives up to its tag of ‘Action Entertainer’ and certainly entertains you. Ravi Teja is up to his belligerent, energetic best. Delivering punch lines is apparently second nature to Ravi Teja now. Ravi Teja has been struggling for a decent hit since ‘Mirapakai’, Balupu is that hit. Mass Maharaja and fans are surely happy. The first half is filled with light-hearted comedy and a great show by Sruthi Hassan. Sruthi really adds the ‘Glam’ in ‘Glamorous’. A talented artist, she was able to carry out a Glam doll role to perfection. Anjali too perfectly fulfilled her role as the cute and bubbly Girl-Next-Door.

The first half moved along quickly with the laughs but the second tended to be more dragged and predictable, but perhaps that was unavoidable. The violence quota is certainly too high and so is the comedy quota. Ravi Teja has delivered some very gripping dialogues in both halves of the movie. Gopichand Malineni has the knack of giving the audience just what they want. Mass fans will surely jump out of their seats. The summer has begun on a high note.

Positives + :

• Brahmanandam as ‘Crazy’ Mohan. His imitations of Pawan Kalyan in the first half and Allu Arjun’s recent “Maatallev…” dialogue brought the entire audience to applause.

• Ravi Teja’s boundless energy. The brooding ‘Kancherapalem Shankar’ from the second half was the perfect character exemplifying ‘Balupu’.

• Sruthi Hassan’s Oomph factor and some memorable moves in the songs. Just her presence was enough to set the screen on fire.

Negatives - :

• Some actors have been under-used. Nasser, Adivi Sesh and Ali were grossly under-used.

• The flashback sequence with Anjali was too predictable. The screenplay in the second half too was in tatters.

• The climax is fairly entertaining in places but weak at best. Only Brahmi is the shining factor of the climax.

• Thaman’s music too is getting quite predictable. All tracks had some peppy bits in them but they failed to hit it as a whole. Only ‘Pathikella chinnadi’ managed to stay with the audiences.

Rating : 3/5

Verdict : Watch it ! Once at best, twice if you so please.