A forgettable love story

Among the young gen actors who have links with the megastar Chiranjeevi family, ‘Supreme Hero’ Sai Dharam Tej has had the maximum releases ever since he made his debut in 2014. The latest flick of his - ‘Tej I Love You’ - directed by veteran A Karunakaran, happens to be his 10th release in four years. Interestingly, his maternal cousin Varun Tej who debuted during the same year has had seven and Ram Charan, who is clearly a super senior has had only eleven in a span of 11 working years. 

This hero, who looks and acts more like his maternal uncle obviously has seen both sharp highs and lows in his career, more than the other leading lads of the family.  Coming to the Friday release, beginning the proceedings in a small town setting as a family social, the director soon moves it into the glitzy college campus of Visakhapatnam and later Hyderabad. The pace is unhurried and the treatment relaxed as the love story takes its time to warm up, given that the heroine (Anupama Parameswaran) plays tough and even dominates her beau to an extent. 

This, despite the fact that the hero has a criminal background having committed a juvenile crime for which he is detained for seven years. Not taking off too much into the action and dishoom dishoom track, the film stays as a musical, youth- oriented one. True to tradition, Karunakaran does not allow the happy ending to the love lives of his lead cast, introducing quite a few parallel tracks to his narration, including a short-term memory loss to his heroine! The first half moves on well and sets up a reasonably good entertainer promising an interesting mix of love and emotion. 

The second stutters for a while before settling in the range of melodrama and sentiment with the feel good climax pleasing one and all.  Despite a career of 12 films in 20 years, Karuna karan seems to have directed many stars of the Chiru household which began with Pawan Kalyan, Allu Arjun and it seems to be continuing with his nephew. His film could have been really a smashing entertainer if the narration could have been even more linear and less sentimental.

BY K Naresh Kumar