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Amrutham – Chandamamalo Movie Review
Critically acclaimed director Gunnam Gangaraju who was the creative mind behind popular sitcom Amrutham made a feature film ‘Amrutham-Chandamamalo’ based on the characters of sitcom. This was promoted as the first space comedy ever on Telugu Screen. Let’s see how impressive it is..
What is it about?
Amrutha Rao (Avasarala) and Anjaneyulu (Harish) plans to expand their business to moon after they become highly successful as hoteliers in India. They get tricked by a rocket company agent and lose all their money and dragged on to the roads. Did they get back all their lost money? What happened to their dream of establishing business on Moon?
Performances:
Avasarala Srinivas: He didn’t bring any significant changes to the stock character of Amrutha Rao. His casual acting and free flowing dialog delivery are nice. Avasarala should stick to supporting roles to make the best use of his talent.
Harish: Harish is alright as Anjaneyulu. He couldn’t outclass Gundu Hanumantha Rao who has excelled in this character in Amrutham.
Others: Dhanya Balakrishnan goes overboard in comedy scenes. She suited well to the character though. Sivannarayana is good as the greedy house owner. Rao Ramesh is neat. Vasu is okay. The young pair has come up with pretty average performance.
Technicalities:
Direction: Gunnam Gangaraju’s previous films as director didn’t do well at the box office. But he got a very good name for dealing with different concepts. Little Soldiers and Amma Cheppindi are class apart. Amrutham is the brainchild of Gangaraju and he has made it very successful on TV. Transforming it on to silver screen is a huge task and Gangaraju failed big time with ACL. Fun episodes looked forced and seemed like he was trying too hard to make them work. One who admires Gangaraju wouldn’t appreciate this film at all.
Others: Gangaraju had an experienced team on board, but sadly none of them could deliver. Cinematography was bland and made the product design look cheap all the way. Music didn’t impress at all. The parody songs couldn’t pack the punch. Dialogues written by Gangaraju were good in parts.
Thumbs Up:
Hard to find the plus points
Thumbs Down:
Second half is a big letdown
Direction and screenplay were awful
Film making of Television standards
Analysis:
Amrutham fans and Gunnam Gangaraju admirers might have expected this film to be a laughing riot. But the film failed on every level and ends up as a huge disappointment. Chandamamalo Amrutham had some good moments here and there, but they are just not enough to make audiences sit through the film.
First half is alright with subtle humor barring the episodes of ‘silent wedding’ and the other scenes that involve factionists. The film goes downhill post interval and it wouldn’t pick up after that. It just goes down and down leaving audiences in plain disgust. Scenes shot in ‘space’ were awful at the best. One would wonder what happened to the creative brain of Gangaraju to write such a bland comedy.
Other thing that lets down big time is the production design of the film. It looks like a film that was made for TV. It is advisable to watch Amrutham old episodes on Youtube for free rather paying money for this pathetic comedy. This wouldn’t take too long to make an appearance on TV and who knows it may click there too. After all Amrutham is a brand on TV no?
Verdict:
Poisonous Comedy!
