Juvva - Movie Review

'Juvva', starring Ranjith, Palak Lalwani, Murali Sharma and others in key roles, hit the screens on Friday. Let's find out what works and what doesn't.

Story

Rana (Ranjith) makes money by deceiving the gullible. His two assistants, Saptagiri and Bhadram, are his world. A super-rich girl named Shruti (Palak Lalwani) steals his heart right away when she accidentally hits him on a night.

Enter Basavaraj, a criminal who has served a jail term. His single-minded focus is to marry Shruti. He has always loved her from childhood. The helpless girl now runs for her life. By a quirk of fate, Rana and Basavaraj become friendly. Somehow, Rana ends up in the same house as Shruti, who is now under the protection of a police officer (Murali Sharma). Even as Basavaraj keeps searching for Shruti, the police officer delivers a twist.

What is that? What are the consequences of the twist? Will Rana be able to save his girlfriend from the clutches of the evil villains?

Analysis

The problem with 'Juvva' is that it is not only illogical but also over-indulgent. How can a ruthless villain who can terrify anybody fail to secure the photograph of the girl he has zealously been searching for? Just because she has burnt down all her photos! Give us a break. This villain goes on and on with the childhood photograph of Shruti, which baffles Posani Krishna Murali and also irritates the audiences.

You will be shocked to see the romantic-comedy track. Shruti is hugely rich and this makes our silly crook (the hero) very confident that she will definitely fall for him. "It's easy for film stars, cricketers and most-wanted criminals like me to impress girls," he says. And the dull-headed Shruti falls in place for him. Saptagiri tells her that the hero lost his memory because she hit him by mistake. He is shown going back in time and talking like Sri Krishnadevaraya and Salim. Our heroine is worried and guilty that the guy became mad because of her.

She then goes to meet him at a public place where he pretends to have become Salim. As soon as she sees him, her attire morphs into Anarkali's dress. Bingo! She walks up to him and nearly kisses him. Does she suffer from a multiple personality disorder or what? Just because someone believes he is Salim, does she automatically start believing she is Anarkali? In another scene, our hero becomes Mahendra Baahubali, Saptagiri becomes Kattappa (Ali calls him 'Vattappa' in a clear reference to a male organ) and they both harass Ali. This atrociously done scene puts the previous appallingly done scenes to shame.

After a point, the character Basaravarj starts looking like a semi-joker. He puts the same one-note expression scene after scene. After a point, even the heroine stops trembling much. As for our hero, his body language entirely lacks any trace of seriousness. He doesn’t have iota of acting skill.

Comedy actors like Saptagiri, Posani, Bhadram, Prabhas Sreenu, Surekha Vani, 'Kalakeya' Prabhakar are a good-for-nothing bunch. Barring a few Saptagiri lines, it's difficult to remember any comedy scene. Bhadram is like a junior Kallu Chidambaram and nothing more.

Since the director is long-time associate and friend of Rajamouli, M M Keeravani seems to have given the music but the senior director’s work is also uninspiring. Pathetic cinematography and mediocre editing complete the tragedy. The direction is out rightly bad.

Bottomline: 'Juvva', directed by Rajamouli’s long-time associates, tells a mediocre, clichéd story with an outdated screenplay. The heroism is silly and one has to search for seriousness in the proceedings more zealously than the villain searches for the heroine. This is train-wreck.