Terrific soundtrack, Geetha Govindam pair and aggressive promotions have set high expectations on Dear Comrade. But did the debut director Bharat Kamma deliver a product that can meet those expectations? Let’s analyze…

What is it about?

Chaitanya a.k.a. Bobby (Vijay) is a angry youngster who fights for the rights of students. He falls in love with Aparna a.k.a. Lilly (Rashmika), a state level cricketer. But his anger issues create a rift between them. They meet after three years, but by then Lilly is going through depression phase and Bobby helps her come out of it. Lilly wants to live her rest of the life with Bobby, but he asks her to restart her cricketing career. There is a serious problem with that as Lilly refuses to look back.

Performances:

Vijay Deverakonda appears as a angry and emotional person Bobby who goes through various phases in life. Vijay does complete justice to his character by appearing in different looks in different phases. His screen presence and performance fuels Dear Comrade in spite of its shortcomings. Rashmika does a challenging role and she has given a decent performance. An experienced actress would have been a better choice. The story revolves around these two characters and the remaining cast is restricted to the background. Charuhaasan, Shruti Ramachandran and Suhas make their presence felt.

Technicalities:

Bharat Kamma extracted the best output from his technicians and lead actors. He has sound technical knowledge which is why the film is visually appealing. However, there is a lot of confusion in the screenplay. Director wants to raise an issue that is being overlooked, but couldn’t make an engaging film because of too many unnecessary elements included. Also the pacing is troublesome.

Dialogues are fine. Music by Justin Prabhakaran is the highlight. Every song has been shot so well. Background score also is impressive. Cinematography is beautiful. It is like visual poetry on the screen. Editing could have been better. Production values are excellent.

Thumbs Up:

Vijay Deverakonda

Chemistry between lead pair

Thumbs Down:

Disjointed storytelling

Slow pace

Lack of emotional connect

Analysis:

Dear Comrade is based on a burning issue – sexual harassment of women at the workplace. However, this issue comes to the forefront only in the last half an hour or so. Until then it deals with a love story where two conflicting personalities fall in love. Bobby is an angry young man who cannot tolerate injustice. Lilly doesn’t want to get into any mess and live her life peacefully. No wonder they get separated and Bobby struggles hard to come out of the depression. He gets over the breakup, but meets Lilly again who is now in a bad state. He gets to know the reason for it and the rebel in him resurfaces, but Lilly refuses to fight.

The message that Dear Comrade delivers is good and certainly the need of the hour. However, the film doesn’t focus on it until the last act. We get to see a love story that only sparkles here and there. There is nothing new in the romance or the conflict, which makes it passe. The Comrade angle in Bobby seems forced and out of place. The fights don’t add any value to the script and in fact makes it a bit more lengthy. It looks as if the director is playing around Vijay Deverakonda’s rebel image. Only the chemistry between the lead pair and beautiful songs make the first half watchable.

Second half of the film is entirely different from the first half. We can see that the story is heading towards something unexpected, but the passage is dull and absolutely disengaging. The director doesn’t get into the details of the harassment and simply leaves it to audience’s perception, which isn’t a good idea. There should have been better scenes to show the struggle and pain. Even the climax sequence isn’t striking enough. It surely raises right questions, but fails to make an emotional connect that stays with the audience after they leave the theaters. Dear Comrade should have taken a better approach than the one that is shown in the film.

All in all, the film ends up as a half-baked attempt that isn’t either a commercially viable or an emotionally satisfying one. It relies totally upon Vijay Deverakonda’s craze in terms of box office returns.

Verdict: Oh Dear!