Hello there! This is my SPOILER-FREE REVIEW for the long awaited Venkatesh starrer movie: “NARAPPA”.
And yeah… As we all know, this movie is the official remake of the Tamil blockbuster Dhanush starrer: “Asuran”. If you didn’t watch it, okay... If you did… Just take put it out of your head for a while because this review of mine, will be about Narappa and Narappa alone. There will be no comparisons of this movie with Asuran.
So, this movie Narappa is a period-action-drama film based on a Tamil novel named “Vekkai” (Meaning: Heat) written by Poomani. This movie is one of those few movies with the feel of RAWNESS in it.
To be said in one sentence, this movie is “Good story enhanced with powerful writing, executed with great performances”. As always, let me break the review into different technical aspects.
WRITING
To be honest, this is where this movie excels the most. Man, oh man! The story won’t be having any major twists or turns, but… It remains unpredictable. It keeps giving us surprises. One after another. The story is about the fictional version of the Karamchedu massacre set in the 1980s (Which originally began on 17th July 1985). This story explores many sensitive topics, which are common in most of the villages in India. Discussion about any of those would be mild or maybe major spoilers for the movie. I will be giving a detailed analysis and information about all of those in the SPOILER-FILLED ANALYSIS of this movie, which I will be releasing on the television premiere of the movie 😉 (Sic).
The story was of course from the novel Vekkai, written by Poomani and Vettrimaaran made the changes to the story and made the script to present the movie in the Vetrimaaran-Way… Srikanth Addala wrote the dialogues for the film.
Coming to the screenplay, it was intense and drama was used only when necessary. The screenplay was written in such a way that we don’t feel the hyper-reality if it was ever there in the story.
The dialogues for the film? They were okay… None of them actually wanders in our minds and that is what makes us a LITTLE disconnected to the characters sometimes. They were good. But they could have been a lot more better.
My rating for the:
Story is 9/10
Screenplay is 9/10
Dialogues is 7/10
DIRECTION
Srikanth Addala helmed this project as the Director of the film. Wait… Is it really Srikanth Addala? Let me check his filmography. Oh… his debuted with “Kotha Bangaaru Lokam”, following “Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu”, “Mukundha”, “Brahmotsavam” and then “Narappa”? What?
This is what, I did in a loop for 10 to 15 times. The man who did all of those feel good movies did this dark themed Period-Action Film? None of us could even guess this guys name if we were given quiz about the crew of Narappa. He had a total changeover. Wow! What a direction man… He definitely got the touch of the “Casualness” approach in the direction, which is one of the common points from his all of his previous movies. This is what made the characters look as actual villagers. The direction created scenes where, where we shed tears for the characters, get angry, frustrated, happy, overwhelmed, feel the pain and what not?
Coming to the performances, let us talk about everyone at once, except for Victory Venkatesh. Everyone else were good. They did the so called “Justice” for their parts. The casting for the film was good and some of the choices felt perfect. I need to talk about the casting for the second female lead. Ammu Abhirami who was casted for the character named “Kannamma”, the love interest for the younger version of Narappa. This is where it felt a bit odd and for the ones, who saw her as a 16 year old in Ratsasan or Rakshasudu (And hey… my first review was about Ratsasan/ Rakshasudu movie. Check it out too… 🤓) will be feeling the cringe when we see Venkatesh and Ammu as a pair. This is the only place I felt they could have gave a thought about what the audience would feel about it. Except for that, everyone else felt like they were fit for their roles.
Coming to our VICTORY Venkatesh. This is a double victory for him. We definitely missed him in 2020 after Venky Mama and this is a really great visual treat for all of us. Coming to the performance, we could see no Venkatesh in the film. It’s just Narappa. We can’t even think that it is one of Venkatesh’s roles and he was acting in it. He just… I can’t even tell it words. We just fall in love with the character and the depth of the character is one of the best I have ever seen so far. The philosophies and some of the decisions he takes within minutes and sometimes, he does that within seconds and won’t even give it a second thought.
This is one of the most common thing that everyone says, but… HE NAILED IT.
Thanks to the Srikanth Addala, who did an amazing job as the director of the film.
I’d give a 8.5/10 for the direction.
AUDIO (BACKGROUND SCORE & SOUND EFFECTS )
To be straight to the point. I felt that the music director MANI SHARMA was criminally underused. He’s got a lot of potential people, we all know that. But in this movie, except for the main theme score and the theme song (which are of the same tune of course), nothing actually stays in our minds. Be honest… comment down below if you remember any of the other score (Background Music) you heard in the film, opting out the main theme, as I mentioned above. That is MANI SHARMA buddy… one of the gems that Tollywood has ever had. Turned out, (Sorry, but I had to break my promise that I made in the beginning) the theme music of the film was straight out of Asuran. That means, he gave nothing so special for the movie. The music was good, but not hummable. It was somehow just as needed for the scenes. To be honest, I was disappointed for the music part of the film.
The songs were good and here too, the sound mixing made us feel the dialogues dominating the song. I… 🤦🏻♂️ I don’t have anything else to say.
I’m sorry, but I would give a 6.5/10 for the background score and 8/10 for the soundtrack (songs).
VISUALS
Shyam K Naidu handled the cinematography for the film. As soon as I heard him being recruited as the cinematographer, I felt a bit worried the visuals. His previous movies had certain complaints from the critics about the colours he use. But… he surprised me. He proved me wrong 🤥. The visuals were pretty good. I was impressed. Good job man… this is the kind of story where there is no need for a particular angle of camera for building the suspense and stuff. This is the aspect which he used. He proved his potential and pushed his limits. He definitely is one of the most sought after cinematographers now, for sure…
The VFX? It definitely has some flaws, which make us feel that a particular shot has got some VFX. But… most of the time, they were impressive and sometimes, they were realistic. They did a pretty good job with the visuals.
8.5/10 is my score for the visuals.
EDITING
Marthand K Venkatesh handled the editing for the film. Hmm… the editing… It was like a Village Road. It had its own ups and downs. It was good… it was as needed for the film. It was PERFECT at places. Could have been better at places. Even then, it was satisfactory, just like the journey on the Village Road. 😄
And… 7.5/10 is the score I’d give for the editing.
Based on my above ratings and judgements, I’d give an 8/10 for Narappa.
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