Lion Movie Review
After delivering blockbuster with Legend, Nandamuri Balakrishna is back with Lion. Teaming up with actress Trisha for the first-time and first-timer director Satyadev, Balayya dons the hat of CBI officer raising curiosity on the film. Given that it’s his 98th film in filmography and first film after he was elected as MLA for Hindupur constituency, the film garnered lot of hype, buzz. Let’s check out whether the 159-minute 14 seconds odd film lived up to it or not.
Story:
A sincere CBI officer Bose (Balakrishna) was injured by Chief Minister Bhardwaj (Prakash Raj) and he lives in coma for more than an year. Later he recovers to find himself some where and people around him calling him by the name Godse. He comes back to Hyderabad in search of his stolen identity and once again confronts with the Chief Minister. Rest of the story is who he traces back his past and saves his family.
Performances:
Nandamuri Balakrishna always brings out the best in him when the characters challenge him. It happened with Simha and Legend in the recent times. But neither Bose nor Godse have that depth and challenge. Both Trisha and Radhika Apte were mere glam dolls and have nothing to do with the story.
The romantic scenes between Balayya and Trisha looked very odd at this age and they could have been easily avoided. Prakash Raj is okay as a villain. Adithya Menon or Ravi Varma looked boring. M S Narayana, Posani Krishna Murali and Ali were too loud and were overacting. Suresh, Geetha, Jayasudha, Chalapathi Rao were wasted in poorly etched roles. Indraja barely had any scenes in the film.
Technical Performances:
Satyadeva is the main culprit behind the film’s fiasco. The story of the film is almost a stone age one and it gets further worse stuffed with predictable scenes which we have seen many times in many films. The film starts off well and plummets immediately after that. The interval bang is the only highlight in the first half. The second half also run on similar lines but will have few good action sequences here and there. The director even took the mass audience for granted by using too much of rope work in the fights and lengthy dialogues.
Prasad’s Camera work is fine. Mani Sharma had delivered an ordinary album but all the songs were shot well. The back ground score is top notch. Editor should have easily chopped off a good 20 minutes from the film. SLV Cinemas’ Production Values are good enough.
Plus Points:
- Balayya’s Performance as Godse
- Interval Bang
- Back Ground Score
Minus Points:
- Forced Comedy
- Awkward romance between Balayya and Trisha
- Stone Age old story and predictable scenes.
Final Say:
Barring few thrills here and there for fans to relish, Balakrishna’s Lion had nothing novel or interesting. The movie is totally let down by debut director who was struck with the mind of late 1980s. Give it a try if you are a hardcore fan of the actor!
