Seasoned directors dish out stale stories

Popular directors like Krishna Vamsi, Puri Jagannadh, Srinu Vaitla, Jayant C Paranjpee and others are unable to deliver novel content to connect with new generation viewers and paying a heavy price.

After biggest disaster of his career ‘Rogue’, seasoned director Puri returns with ‘Paisa Vasool’ but the much-hyped film failed to draw sensational openings as expected and scathing reviews added to his woes, it is evident that it may not add up to anything significant in the careers of its lead star Balakrishna or its top gun director, Puri Jagannadh.

In the news for a variety of reasons over the past few years, including the recent drug scandal, Puri is clearly a brand devalued, eroding away film after film, and flop after flop. His first-time collaboration with Balayya, which raised a lot of pre-release buzz has ended up disappointing fans of both the celebrities.

The writing is clearly on the wall for the helmsman of ‘Pokiri’ fame. Only that, he along with his contemporaries like Krishna Vamsi and Srinu Vaitla and Jayanth C Paranjpee who have struggled to put together decent and watchable potboilers over many years now refuse to read it. The deathly delusion which grips film world personalities- nothing can happen to my name and fame- seems to have not spared this trio too.

With the modern generation of film watchers preferring interesting, contemporary stuff like ‘ Arjun Reddy’ and being open to welcoming rank outsiders in comparison to well-fed star sons and daughters, it is no wonder that the rehashed, clichéd and repetitive muck which these directors peddle get rejected in the first day itself.

Including the latest lot of actors linked to film families has not helped them at all, as their method of storytelling reeks of staleness.Krishna Vamsi barely stayed afloat with the Ram Charan starrer ‘Govindudu Andarivadele’ in the last decade after his last hit ‘Chandamama’.

The last release ‘Nakshatram’, a muddle-headed masala film clearly highlighted the end of the road for the inspired directorial flashes, Vamsi was famed for. His fault too was the same: not being agile enough to tell the story the Gen Next wants to hear it.

Srinu Vaitla is another craftsman who has been going downhill over the last three years. It all began with the 2014 release ‘ Aagadu’ which dented Mahesh Babu’s success run then.

The next one under his direction ‘Bruce Lee’ was ruthlessly rejected by Ram Charan fans, who was blamed by his fans for not selecting his films carefully. Of course, ‘ Mister’, the recent release this year which had Cherry’s cousin Varun Tej got the stick even more for the superficial handling of the story and the hasty assembling of sequences leaving the audience hugely dissatisfied. It is clearly time up for these directors, unless and until a miracle occurs!

By K Naresh Kumar