Katamarayudu Review: Feast for fans, lacklustre for critics!

Katamarayudu is a comeback film for Pawan Kalyan after the disastrous Sardaar Gabbar Singh. While most ridiculed his decision to star in a remake, and said that he’s taking the easy way out. Those who have watched 'Veeram' will agree that there’s nothing to rave about its story and the same applies to its Telugu version too. However, minor changes in Katamarayudu come as a pleasant surprise and work quite well.

The film Katamarayudu is a commercial entertainer with a pretty ordinary story. It packs all elements that cater to the interest of the actor’s fans. The film is the official remake of Tamil film, Veeram, which had Ajith in the lead role. Director Kishore Kumar Pardasani (Dolly), has tried to remain honest to the original film and has, in fact, borrowed a few heroic shots from the Tamil version. The writers of Katamarayudu have made some basic changes to the original script to suit the taste of the Telugu film audience.

Katamarayudu is a powerful and unelected leader of a village in Rayalaseema, which is known for the valour and short temperament of its native people. For decades, Rayalaseema has provided a gripping backdrop for hundreds of action-packed Telugu movies. Katamarayudu has four brothers, not by blood but by bond and violence is his first resort to solve the problems of the poor and weak and uphold justice. Katamarayudu detests women and the concept of marriage.

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He had a crush when he was a teenager and it obviously failed, which probably made him so.All of Katamarayudu’s brothers are in love but don’t have the courage to tell him about their affairs. But, still, Katamarayudu is seen as an ideal brother. His brothers collude and decide to make Katamarayudu fall in love. By chance, they come across Avanthika (Shruti Haasan) and she becomes their target. So eventually Avanthika falls in love with Katamarayudu. Soon

Katamarayudu finds out that she and her family are in danger. He saves them all to mark the end of the story. But Dolly has taken 2 hours 30 minutes to narrate this story set in an overused premise with his outdated filmmaking tricks.

While the antics and methods of the brothers to bring Katamarayudu and Avanthika together are ridiculous, it somehow manages to enthral the audience. The film has a few punchlines and comedy that draws some genuine applause and laughs but for the most part, all the characters in the film have been used only to sing praises of Katamarayudu, which becomes annoying after a certain point. Pawan seems to be a reluctant dancer as he performs in duets set in picturesque foreign locations and those musical numbers only add to the boredom. Even action scenes are also a drag.

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It seemed like even after more than two hours, the director was unsure he has established Katamarayudu’s heroism. I’d like to tell him, he succeeded in establishing the heroism of the lead character in the beginning of the film and he could have used the rest to the time to narrate an actual story.

The storyline in the second half is predictable and the screenplay is on the slower side. Some of the song sequences are passable while the music and background score remains decent throughout. Prudhvi's performance as Avanti's uncle is reminiscent of similar roles by Brahmanandam as he tries to ward off Pawan's interest for Avanti, and he does a decent job with it.

The other characters in the film don’t make a mark. We should blame the filmmakers for writing a screenplay so narrow that could only accommodate Pawan Kalyan.

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