Souryam Review

Credits: Dialogues – M Ratnam

Lyrics – Bhaskarabhatla

Ramajogaiah Sastry Anant Sriram

Music – Manisharma, Cinematography – Vetri

Editing – Marthand K Venkatesh

Action – Vijay, Ram-Lakshman

Producer – V Ananda Prasad

Story, screenplay and direction – Siva.

Banner: Bhavya Creations

Released on: September 25, 2008

It has become very common among the directors these days to prepare a story based on the image of a particular actor. Though they claim that they have prepared a tailor-made story keeping his style and body language in view, it finally comes out as a role which the hero had already played in his career. Gopichand gave hits like Ranam, Lakshyam and Okkadunnadu. Once again he comes out with a similar action flick through Sauryam. Another speciality is that Anushka is paired up with Gopichand for the second time in this flick, while popular cinematographer Siva has made his debut as director through this movie, besides providing story and screenplay.

Vijay (Gopichand) is the son of a goon, who gets killed in an encounter. Vijay could not feed his sister Divya (Poonam Kaur) after they become orphans.When some missionary people take girl orphans to an orphanage, Vijay lies that he doesn't know who is Divya with a hope that she would get meal every day. Though he repents at a later date as Divya starts disowning him. A rich couple adopts Divya and take her with them and Vijay cannot trace her address. Meanwhile, Vijay is brought up by a sincere police officer (Saratbabu) and he becomes an ACP.

Vijay becomes an encounter specialist with his daring and dashing acts. He doesn't know what is fear. This makes him develop enmity with Sivaram Goud, who is a big gangster, amassing crores of rupees through land mafia and other such affairs. He has been in the habit of killing all those police officers, who try to put him behind the bars, with the help of his son (Ajay). Vijay warns Sivaram Goud to mend his ways, but he does not. At this juncture, Vijay comes to know that his sister is in Kolkata and decides to go there. So he applies leave for six months and he informs his superior officer (Benarjee) that he is going to meet his sister.

That crooked police officer leaks the matter to Sivaram Goud and the latter finds the weakness of Vijay. So his goons too set out in search of Divya. Though Vijay meets Divya, he did not reveal their relationship as he doesn't know whether she will accept him or not. On learning that Sivaram Goud is also in search of Divya, Vijay becomes her bodyguard. Incidentally, Sivaram Goud's son catches Divya and Vijay attacks and kills him for trying to kidnap his sister. In order to take revenge for his son's death, Sivaram Goud abducts Divya and threatens to kill her. This makes her realise that Vijay is none other than her sister and pardons him. The film ends on a happy note with the killing of Sivaram Goud.

PLUS:The excellent ease of Gopichand in action scenes is the highlight of the movie and the action scenes in the movie definitely evokes claps from the front benchers. The action scenes and lot of bloodshed, the heavy blasts of vehicles and other action scenes give the film an excellent mass appeal. Gopichand is at his usual best. He has not only shown good ease in action scenes but also emoted well in sentiment scenes too. At the same time he has shown good comedy timing and director Siva has been able to extract good comedy from Gopichand. Anushka has filled the glamour slot and does not have much scope to perform. Manoj K Jayan's villainy is novel. Ajay is okay in his role, while Poonam Kaur, who plays the sister for the hero is appropriate. Others have done justice to their respective roles.

MINUS:Though the film is basically an action film with sister-brother sentiment and love in its backdrop, the show of too much violence and bloodshed is unnecessary. Though the director had a good grip in the first half and maintained good suspense, he lost the same in the second half. Especially, during the narration of the flashback, the director has unnecessarily stretched some scenes. Though the time was made good use for evoking comedy, it has really bored the audience. Marthand K Venkatesh should have pruned these scenes to prevent damage. The climax was also very poorly shot.

REMARKS:Camera work by Vetri is worth the compliments. Music by Manisharma is partly good. Only a couple of tunes are catchy. Once again, the director has tried to utilize Anushka's glamour to woo the audiences. As a mark of sentiment, scenes like Anushka boozing, and using her butt and waist are repeated in this film too. The film, though may not go well with the city audiences, would definitely attract the mass audiences especially in B and C centres. It is a film that could be watched once for those who love action movies.

Cast: Gopichand, Anushka, Poonam Kaur, Manoj K Jayan, Ajay, Tanikella Bharani, Saratbabu, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Ali, Krishna Bhagawan, Raghubabu, MS Narayana, Sudha and others