Sarkaru Vaari Paata Movie Review 

Ashwin Ram

Sarkaru Vaari Paata is a Telugu commercial flick starring Mahesh Babu and Keerthy Suresh in the lead roles. Samuthirakani plays the antagonist. The film is directed by Parasuram of Geetha Govindam fame. The movie has music scores by Thaman.

Premise

Mahesh Babu is a loan shark who lives in the US. One day he visits his home country India to get back his 10,000$ money from the billionaire businessman Samuthirakani as his daughter Keerthy Suresh is refusing to pay him back. Suddenly the hero makes a breaking statement to the press that Samuthirakani has borrowed 10,000 crores INR from him. The backstory and reasoning follows…

Writing/ Direction

The Geetha Govindam director Parasuram has already proven in the humour area and he strikes well with the same here. The romantic-comedy sequences are funny and enjoyable in both halves. These specific situations are quirky, delivered with ease and instantly evoke laughter. There are three songs in total, the placements are well built in the film. The story is convincing enough, moreover it would easily connect with the general public as it predominantly deals with the banking loan system and how it is recovered differently depending on the person’s wealth. Unfortunately, the writer makes no use of the opportunity as the screenplay is blunt with barely any interesting mass sequence to cheer up for. Scenes and situations are old-school, not just that, the treatment is very lethargic as most are just blind action. The idea of the final drama is exciting, but it is staged so badly and so the whole thing becomes pointless. Villain character is very weakly sketched, so the scope of an interesting cat and mouse game is ruled out. The emotional connect forms at the very end, even after the climax, the drama could’ve worked better if the sentimental backstory is revealed earlier in the movie. Certain dialogues are pretty good, the Viagra one at the end was so unique.

Performances

Mahesh Babu is so charming on-screen, his romantic expressions are sure to look out for, he carries the film on his shoulders during the heroic scenes. Keerthy Suresh gets into the glamour space, tries it to an extent at her first attempt, she is indeed appealing and scores well in the fun portions with her enthusiastic reactions. Vennela Kishore does well, his combination scenes with the lead pair are entertaining. Samuthirakani gets a feeble baddie role, he remains subtle at most places with no-brainer game going on, his potential is utterly wasted. Nadhiya seems to be appearing in just a cameo, but her role was actually fulfilling after the true nature of her character comes to light. The others appear only in one or two scenes for no reason or with some lame reason.

Technicalities

Apart from the hero introduction song that felt very distant, the other two numbers namely ‘Ma Ma Mahesha’ and especially ‘Kalaavathi’ are too good. Dance choreography for these two songs are enjoyable as well. And boy, Thaman never disappoints with his background score, even a dull sequence tries to be momentous with his powerful music. Cinematography is a mixed bag here , hero elevation slow motion shots are fine but lazy work at times, guess Samuthirakani’s portions were shot in so much rush as just a single camera angle is maintained for three of his mono-act scenes which led to some pathetic jump cuts. Even otherwise, the editing isn’t any good, the energetic dance number placed at the end is cut like Parotta Chops, it was so randomly edited. Nothing special with respect to the fight sequences, action choreography is pretty usual. We get to see some well-imagined heroic shots at some places, but the terrible visual effects work spoils everything. The CG shots look damn fake wherever they appear, usage of green mat is excessively high.

Bottomline

The minor part of the film which is the romantic-comedy angle works big time and acts as the saviour of the film along with the performances and music, but the major portions which are the action sequences and the hero VS villain situations are sadly turnoffs. Despite the storyline having the potential to emotionally connect, the lackluster screen-writing let things down.

Rating - 2.5/5