After making flops like Kantri, Billa and Shakti with NTR and Prabhas, director Meher Ramesh has now experimenting with Venkatesh for the film Shadow. The Telugu audiences, who have already tasted his flops, thought that he would come up with a gripping subject and would resurrect his dwindling career. Unfortunately, he could not give a hit even with Venkatesh and other stars like Srikant, Aditya Pancholi and Sivaji Shinde.
The story of the film is almost routine and has nothing new in it. Rajaram @ Shadow (Venkatesh) is the son of a journalist Raghuram (Nagababu), who wants to come out with a breaking story. In this process, Raghuram makes some efforts and joins the gang of a huge mafia gang run by Nana Bhai (Aditya Pancholi). After entering the gang, Raghuram gathers the evidences and informations one after the other and hands them over to his publisher CP (Sayaji Shinde). This information leaks and Nana goes on a killing spree and eliminates the entire family of Raghuram.
Fortunately, Rajaram skips from the jaws of death and manages to escape from the eyes of Nana and his gang. Later, Rajaram vows that he would take revenge against Nana. Baba (Nazar) brings him up and makes him a full-fledged young man and turns Shadow to kill the members of Nana's gang. Meanwhile, Shadow comes across a powerful police officer named Prathap (Srikant), who is also after Nana's gang and is out to erase the entire mafia gang. He earns the name of an encounter specialist. Though the aim of both Shadow and Prathap are same, the chosen paths are different.
At this juncture, Rajaram @ Shadow comes to know an interesting point that his sister (Madhurima) is still alive and she too escaped from the carnage of Nana gang. Another twist is that she marries Prathap. Now, what Shadow should do? Stop killing Nana gang and help Prathap to officially erase the entire gang or take revenge himself as he vowed in the beginning? How Shadow's sister escaped from the clutches of Nana? Who brought her up? Will Shadow complete his vow and took revenge against Nana's gang? Answers to all these questions have to be seen on screen.
It is Venkatesh, who has taken the entire responsibility to run the show all through the movie. Though he has tried his best, he could not save the film. The title song has been shot in a trendy manner and the costumes are quite lavish. Few dialogues penned for him have some punch. However, the director failed to fill the intensity in his character. He showed good ease in songs and dance sequences.
Taapsee Pannu, who played the female lead appeared quite romantic and glamorous after a long time. However, she has no scope to perform in this movie. Srikanth is good as a tough police officer in this movie.
Comedy by MS Narayana and Jayaprakash Reddy give a little relief for the audiences. At the same time, Krishna Bhagawan and Vennela Kishore have failed to tickle the funny bones of audiences. The movie had some light scenes only when they appeared on the screen.
Other artists did justice in their respective roles. It is not known why the director kept the spoofs of some hit films like Gabbar Singh and some other NTR films. The selection of villains is very poor in the film. Aditya Pancholi could not do justice as villain in the movie and the audiences will get to see villains like Rahul Dev and Supreet in Telugu films. The director has failed to make use of veteran artistes like Gita in the movie. Madhurima could not get any break once again with this movie.
Prasad Murella's camera work fails to attract the audiences. Though the producer has spent a fortune on the movie, the richness could not be seen on the screen. The lighting, shades and the camera angles fail to help for the success of the movie. Marthand's editing too is poor as the visuals originally were not so good to watch. Thaman's re-recording is just average, but the tunes for the songs are not so attractive and foot-tapping.
Finally, the only one to blame for the failure of the film is none other than the director. The story selected for the movie is outdated and old. At the same time, the movement of the flick is very slow and average. Neither the script of the movie nor the screenplay has any novelty. The director has failed to attract the audiences in any angle. Though the film has a whole lot of senior artists, he has failed to make use of any of them. Leave alone the subject matter of the film, at least the comedy tracks penned are not impressive.
The poor climax, ill-conceived concept, improper cinematography and very poor music (songs) made the entire film unwatchable. The talent of Venkatesh has almost been wasted because of the poor direction of Meher Ramesh. Watch the film if you are a hardcore fan of Venkatesh. Or wait for the DVD.
Shadow Cast And Crew
Producer: Paruchuri Kireeti
Director: Meher Ramesh Cast: Venkatesh, Taapsee, Srikant, Madhurima, Aditya Pancholi, MS Narayana, Nazar, Sayaji Shinde, Suman, Jayaprakash Reddy, Subbaraju, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Rao Ramesh, Surya, Nagababu, Rahul Dev, Krishna Bhagawan, Srinivas Reddy, Vennela Kishore, Chalapati Rao, Nagineedu, Uttej, Supreet, Satya Prakash, Telangana Sakuntala, Gita, and others
Music: SS Thaman
Released On: April 26, 2013
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