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Akkineni Nagarjuna is one versatile actor in Telugu who has played various roles in his career spanning 17 years. Especially in recent years, he has made conscious decision to do out-of-the-box roles and tried to do new experiments with them. With his unique body language, dialogue delivery and acting, the King has created a niche for himself. The Tollywood star is now back with his latest outing Greeku Veerudu, which features him in a totally brand new look. The 53-year-old star looks like a 25-year-old NRI and his youthfulness is sure to rock you.
Greeku Veerudu is a romance drama, which has all ingredients and is on par with the expectations of the people of all age groups. Nagarjuna and Nayantara's brilliant performances and great chemistry are the main attractions in the movie. S Thaman's melodious music, Anil Bhandari's mesmerising picturisation, arresting plot, Brahmanandam and MS Narayana's comedy timing, beautiful foreign locales, costumes, makeup and art direction are its other highlights.
Kondapalli Dasaradh Kumar, who has teamed up with Nag for the second time, a decade after the release of Santosham, has come up with a fresh and feel-good story, which does not have an antagonist. The story is all about an NRI businessman, who is an Event Manager in USA. He is shrewd, selfish and a cutthroat businessman, who perceives every action including love as a business transaction. The film is a mature romance, which upholds the importance of love, affection and family relationships.
The movie opens up at a city in the USA with a brief introduction to lead characters played by Nagarjuna, Nayantara, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav and MS Narayana, and after few minutes the story shifts to India. The first half has all the masala elements to lure the masses. Dasarath runs the whole show with right mix of romance, comedy and family sentiments. When the audience are going to snooze due to the dragging narration by the end of the first half, the director alerts them with an action scene.
The second half of Greeku Veerudu is also interesting with a few comedy sequences and a couple of romantic tracks. But the pace of the movie slows down in this portion, which has several loop-holes, silly and mindless scenes. The climax of the film is average and it lacks freshness.
Chandu (Nagarjuna) is a selfish NRI event manager, who wants to enjoy life, without any attachments. Following the failure of an event, the court makes him pay heavy fine to PR (Ashish Vidyardhi). He decides to leave for India in a bid to take over his forefather's fortune, which is about Rs 1,000 crores. His grandfather Ramakrishna Prasad (Vishwanadh) warmly welcomes him, but his family soon learns his secret motives. What happens next will form the rest of the story.
As usual, Nagarjuna has delivered brilliant performance in Greeku Veerudu. His role has negative shades and he has done good job in it. His new look and style are the main attractions. He has shown a lot of ease in romance, action and sentimental scenes. Especially, he has done some good moves in song sequences.
Nayantara, who has teamed up with Nagarjuna for the second time after Boss, has good scope for performance and she has also done brilliant job. She looks very glamorous in a few scenes. Her chemistry with Nag is one of the main highlights of the film.
The comedy of MS Narayana, Vennela Kishore and Brahmanandam is one of the main attractions of the film. But at times, some scenes look silly and mindless. Meanwhile, the director appears to have wasted the talented actors like Venu Madhav, Srinivas Reddy and Dharamavarapu Subrahmanyam.
Veteran actor K Vishwanadh's performance is also one of the highlights of the film. The scenes between Nagarjuna and Vishwanadh have been etched out well. Others like Sudha, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Bannerjee and Ashish Vidhyardhi have also done justice to their respective roles.
Anil Bhandari's cinematography is one of the big assets of the film. His work is a visual treat. Especially, he captured some of the most enchanting locales in the USA. But the CGI work is not up to the mark.
S Thaman's music and background score are also main attraction in the technical front. Dialogues, costumes art works and makeup will add to the beauty of the movie. Marthand's editing is also good, but he could have trimmed dragging scene and made them crispy.
On the whole, director Dasarath has done a brilliant job. He has tapped out right kind of work from both artists and technicians. But he should have paid a little attention towards loop-hole in the plot.
In nutshell, Greeku Veerudu is a good family entertainer, which has best performances from Nagarjuna, and Nayantara and sound production values. Although it has some drawbacks, the movie is interesting and enjoyable. Do watch it with your family.
Greeku Veerudu Cast and Crew
Producer: D Siva Prasad Reddy
Director: Dasarath Cast: Nagarjuna, Nayantara, MS Narayana, Vennela Kishore, Brahmanandam, Srinivas Reddy, Dharamavarapu Subrahmanyam, K Vishwanadh, Sudha, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Bannerjee and Ashish Vidhyardhi
Music: S Thaman
Cinematography: Anil Bhandari
Release date: May 3, 2013
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