‘Pappu’ Review: Romantic Humor

Film: Pappu

Rating: 2.25/5
Banner: Arya Entertainment
Cast: Krishnudu, Subbaraju, Dipikka, Uttej, Banerjee, Junaid, Siva Reddy, Sangeetha, Melkote, Surya and others
Music: Phani Kalyan
Cinematography: Kesani Rajendra
Editing: Chandrasekhar
Story, screenplay, direction: Sapan Pasumarthy
Producers: Praveen Reddy, Yada Nagesh
Release date: 25/06/2010

The fat but cute and highly talented Krishnudu has now arrived with a new venture and this time, he is accompanied by a team of talented debutantes.

Story:
Pappu (Krishnudu) is a young man whose life is written with bad luck. His helping nature and kind heart tends to do good to others but at his own expense. His life takes a turn when he sees Radha (Dipikka), his boss’s (Banerjee) daughter and begins to like her. However, Dipikka gets kidnapped by few goons and this puts her family in a dilemma. They call for the help of the ace detective Ram (Subbaraju) and due to a sentiment, even Pappu is sent in the search mission. What is that sentiment? How does a guy riddled with bad luck help Ram? What happens to Pappu’s love story? All this forms the rest of the story.

Performances:
This is an entirely new Krishnudu that we see. He has grown in confidence and his body language is more demonstrative. He is able to emote the expressions very well and does full justice to his character. His efforts and commitment levels are praiseworthy.

Dipikka is a natural beauty and has shades of Sharmila Tagore in few angles. She has shown ease in front of the camera though it is her debut attempt and she can do well if she works on her expressions and lip movement. She needs to change her hairstylist though…

Subbaraju looks handsome as ever but for some reason, he has imbibed Mahesh Babu in his expressions, body language and dialogue delivery. It looks like the ‘Pokiri’ effect is still strong on him. He is a naturally talented and high caliber actor so if he just does his own bit, that will give him great results. But it is good to see an elevated character for him in the film.

Banerjee was good, Uttej was apt, Surya was brief, Junaid did his bit as required, Siva Reddy was not used to his potential, the others tried to contribute in their own way.

Analysis
The film takes off on an interesting note but then it fails to get the audience into the flow. The key flaw in the entire movie is the weak direction. The presentation was somewhat okay but the narrative was poor.

Dialogues were strictly okay, script was average and the screenplay was not upto the mark. Since the storyline is known, a lot depended on how the characters are etched and what is the intensity they are showing to attract the audience into the film.

Though the lead cast gave spirited performances, it didn’t work that much due to the lack of depth in their characters. Editing was abrupt, background score was convincing but it could have been avoided at some scenes. Songs opened very well but lost grip in between, the ‘Anjaneya Stotram’ was impressive.

The film will have good openings at many centers due to the presence of Krishnudu and also due to the interesting combination of Subbaraju and Krishnudu. However, it would take some aggressive publicity and positive word of mouth for the film to sustain decent collections.

Bottomline: Just okay, could have been much better