The latest flick Guntur Kaaram is the attempt of Trivikram Srinivas, who has always been famous as a writer-director with a good taste of crisp comedy and family-oriented stories. The movie features Mahesh Babu, Sreeleela, Meenakshi Chaudhary in the main roles adorned by Ramya Krishna, Jayaram, Prakash Raj, and Jagapathi Babu. The movie explicates the course of Ramana, a Guntur chilli businessman in amending with his law minister mother after being abandoned by her in his childhood.
The film was released worldwide theatrically on 12 January 2024 coinciding with Sankranti, one of the major festivals in South India. The film is produced by S. Radha Krishna under the Haarika & Hassine Creations and it is scored composed by Thaman S, cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa and editing by Naveen Nooli respectively.
The reviews from the audience and critics were mixed. Some liked Mahesh Babu's performance, music scored by Thaman S, and the cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa, but some other views also stated that in general, the film turned out to be long, lack novelty, and have a poor emotional base. The film collected over Rs 40 crore on the first day of release and this is one of the biggest openers this year.
Guntur Kaaram Plot
The film opens in the year 1998 where there are two rival gangs leader Marx and Lenin fight for supremacy over the chilli business in Guntur. Satyam, father of Ramana, having a big warehouse of chilli and a respectable guy in that market. He tried to reach peace between two groups where his efforts got watered down.
Marx and Lenin planned to burn the warehouse of Satyam which was resulting in ringing a violent clash. Satyam loses his brother-in-law Lenin in self-defense, but later on, Satyam voluntarily steps forward to the murder of Lenin and goes to jail for 12 years. Ramana, who was there during the scene, loses his left eye partially because of the explosion.
His mother Vasundhara, the daughter of a powerful politician Venkata Swamy, forsook Ramana and Satyam and left with her father to Hyderabad. She remarried as well a lawyer and due to the support of her father becomes a law minister as well. She had a second son Panni.
25 years later, they show Ramana as a successful businessman of chillies in Guntur after his father. He is shown as the toast of their family and has a very good support at his home. Though he serves his term, Satyam gets into depression and guilt and still locks himself inside these four walls of a room. Ramana is still craving for the love of mother and he wanted to know the cause of leaving him by her.
Elsewhere, Venkata Swamy comes to know about Ramana's presence and he fears that this may be a stumbling block towards achieving his political ambitions as well as in the way of his daughter in terms of reputation. He gets his men to Guntur to make Ramana sign in a legal paper stating that he has no relationship with Vasundhara or her family. Ramana refuses signing to the paper, unless he gets a chance to see his mother and talk to her.
After that, many tactics have been resorted by Venkata Swamy to get the signature from Ramana on the document, by instigating a false FIR against him and by sending goons to attack him and also bribing the local policemen.
But Ramana doesn't leave it and gives a tough fight with the support of his friends and family members. He also gets support from Ammu, who is a journalist in a local TV channel, and Raji, who is a lawyer and Pani's ex-girlfriend. Ammu and Raji are also Ramana's love interests, who compete for his attention.
Meanwhile, a local goon Kata Madhu working to Venkata Swamy tries blackmailing Venkata Swamy using an information that Ramana is Vasundhara's son. He also tries to lure Ramana to his side offering him with money and power. Ramana spurns offer of Kata and thrashes him. But Kata manages to pick wallet of Ramana and reveals media his identity, which creates the sensation.
Vasundhara gets shocked with the news and goes to meet Ramana and confronts him. She slaps him and accuses that he ruined her name and career. Hurt by her words, Ramana signs the document and screams out that she is not his mother. He then returns to Guntur, where he is welcomed by his father and his people.
Vasundhara, who realizes her mistake, decides to apologize to Ramana and reconciles with him. She also feels cowardice and resigns from the ministerial post and leaves her husband and son.
She goes to Guntur along with her father, who also feels guilty about his acts and tries to set right all the affairs that were wrongly done. At last they reach Ramana's house where Satyam and his family are there at the entrance to greet them.
Ramana starts hesitating to see them but when he saw them, he forgives and hugs them. He introduces Ammu and Raji to them telling that he loves both of them too. The film ends with Ramana, Vasundhara, Satyam, and Venkata Swamy posing for a family photo, along with Ammu and Raji.
Guntur Kaaram Review
Guntur Kaaram is a film that attempts to strike a balance between elements of commercial and the emotional elements from a typical Telugu masala film, but ultimately The film entangles in weak and predictable storyline, lack of originality, the superficial treatment to its core theme - mother-son relationship. Besides the film drags too much with unnecessary songs, fights, comedy scenes making a durational stupefy over two and a half hours.
The only positive rounding of the movie goes to Mahesh Babu as Ramana. He could make the audience sit glued to his excellent acting skills. He showed his charisma and elegance in such a role which is both fighting and sensitive. While at action, he is perfectly timed for his pause and style during comic scenes though. He is no doubt the star of the film and the main reason why he can salvage this seemingly unsalvageable film.
The film also boasts off a stellar supporting cast, who do their best with there limited roles. Sreeleela and Meenakshi Chaudhary played the female leads who come as Ammu and Raji respectively. They both look beautiful and have acted well too, and hence share a good chemistry with Mahesh Babu.
Nevertheless, their characters are poorly written and underdeveloped that contribute in the film as eye candy and a comic relief. Ramya Krishna plays Vasundhara who is also a seasoned actress who has carried out powerful roles in the past.
In this movie, however, she is being reduced to a one-dimensional character, cold-hearted and rather remorseful, without shades of gray. Jayaram, playing Satyam, is an experienced actor, so he does have quite a powerful screen presence.
But, it is also a limited and cliched kind of a role from where he doesn't get much scope to show his histrionics. Prakash Raj as Venkata Swamy, the master in playing negative roles, did an okay job in this film. But even his role is stereotypical and predictable in character and doesn't really pose as a challenge to Mahesh Babu.
Jagapathi Babu, who plays Kata Madhu, is another actor who has played villainous roles with aplomb. However, in this film, he is wasted in a weak and ineffective role, who is easily overpowered by Mahesh Babu. The rest of the casting such as Vennela Kishore, Rao Ramesh, Easwari Rao, Murali Sharma, Sunil, Rahul Ravindran and others are whatever in their respective roles as they don't leave any lasting impression.
Even the technical aspects of the film are mixed. The background score and music in the film have been provided by Thaman S that has peppy and energetic tunes, but not a chartbuster. The cinematography in the film has been done by Manoj Paramahamsa which is impressive and is bright that goes well with the environment of Guntur and its culture.
The film's editing by Naveen Nooli is jerky and haphazard at places and could have been crisper and slicker. The action sequences in the film created by Ram-Lakshman are stylized and neatly executed but also repetitive and hackneyed. Written by Trivikram Srinivas, the dialogues of the film are witty and even funny at times while sometimes they also seem to lack sharpness and preachy.
Directed by Trivikram Srinivas, what can be most striking is that the direction remains to be lackluster and also uninspiring. Trivikram has a penchant for quirkiness in screenplays as well as narrations and yet here he puts up lackluster movie despite having a star like Mahesh Babu. He relied on the old-age formula of a hero-centric film, which has a weak and unoriginal plot, superficial and melodramatic. –(IVNTV)