Film: Gunturodu
Cast: Manchu Manoj, Pragya Jaiswal, Sampath
Director: SK Satya
Rating: 2.5 stars
Manchu Manoj is badly in need of a hit and after a gap of almost an year he is back with Guntorudu. While he tried a soft look in Shourya a year ago, now he has taken up out and out mass role to score a much needed hit. In the process, he delivers a routine film -- which offers nothing different to the viewers.
It remains to be seen if his Manoj's mass avatar will bring in the much-vaunted box-office success. But as far as cinema is concerned, Gunturodu is as uninspiring as it gets.
Kanna (Manoj) is a happy go lucky youth from Guntur but his carefree life takes a turn when he enters into a confrontation with Sheshu (Sampath). Sheshu is a criminal lawyer from the same city and he develops a severe grudge against Kanna and does all he can to exact revenge on him.
Things get even more complicated for Kanna, as he falls in love with Amrita (Pragya Jaiswal), who is none other than Sheshu's sister. Does it sound like a typical formulaic mass movie story, where hero takes on villain and wins over his love interest? Yeah, the story of Gunturodu is pretty routine. But director tries to impress the audience by embellishing it as a slick action movie with mass flavour.
Besides story, even screenplay appears loose, with love and comedy scenes not having the desired effect. But the action and confrontation scenes between hero and villain are very impressive. If there are any interesting aspects in the movie, it's the cat-and-mouse game between the hero and the villain. Manchu Manoj has also done well in action scenes.
He deserves appreciation for attempting to do daring stunts. But as far as acting is concerned, there's hardly any improvement - and he remains the same Manoj.
Pragya Jaiswal looks cute and does her part well. The big head turner in the movie is Sampath. This talented actor has got a meaty role in the movie and carried it quite well. Rajendra Prasad and Kota Srinivasa Rao also played important roles quite well. Pruthvi, Satya, Praveen, Sudigali Sudheer and others form a rather comedy batch -- but the comedy in Gunturodu remains average.
Director SK Satya tried to come up with a pucca mass movie sans any pretentions. But it remains to be seen if the audience will accept Manoj in a mass avatar (because that's all there is to the movie).
Interestingly, Megastar Chiranjeevi has given voice-over for Gunturodu. But only he knows why he agreed to do so, as there were no special or extraordinary scenes associated with his voice!