Silly Fellows : Movie Review
Silly Fellows starring Allari Naresh and Sunil is remake of a Tamil hit Velainu Vandhutta Vellaikaaran. Remake specialist Bheemaneni wielded the megaphone for it.
Story:
Sooribabu (Sunil) gets accidentally married to Pushpa, a recording dancer. His friend Veerababu’s (Allari Naresh) love with wannabe police (Chitra) runs into problem as MLA Jacket Janaki Ram (Jayaprakash Reddy) meets with an accident and loses memory. How Veerababu and Soori escape from this mess to get married to their respective girlfriends forms crux of the story.
Performances:
Allari Naresh is his usual self. He is clearly lacking in confidence compared to his earlier films. Thankfully, he is ably supported by Sunil who is back to doing comedy roles. Sunil is quite impressive as the sidekick of Naresh. Chitra Shukla neither shines as a police nor in normal attire. Brahmanandam’s cameo is just okay. Jayaprakash Reddy’s comedy towards the climax is good. Posani Krishna Murali’s performance is loud and unbearable. Poorna plays a blink and miss role as Sunil’s girlfriend.
Technicalities:
Bheemaneni Srinivasarao remains loyal to the original. It is almost a frame-to-frame remake of Velainu Vandhutta Vellaikaaran. Old fashioned direction and presentation don’t impress much. A bit of upgrade according to the latest trends would have been good.
Music is loud, but thankfully there aren’t many songs in the film. Cinematography is pretty standard without anything special about it. Editing is alright. Keeping the runtime short is one of its biggest benefits. Dialogues are good in parts.
Thumbs Up:
Sunil’s comedy
Jayaprakash Reddy’s final episode
Thumbs Down:
Old fashioned direction
Loud comedy
Weak characters
Analysis:
Silly Fellows is a film targeted at B and C centers audience. These comedies have become outdated long back, but Bheemaneni tries his luck yet again with the help of a Tamil script. There is not much story in the film. It is just an episode after episode of comedy laced together to give the ticket’s worth of entertainment. However, only a few episodes have clicked while most of them ended up as damp squibs.
Sunil’s track with Pushpa was supposed to be hilarious, but it didn’t turn out as expected. It gets repetitive after a while and Sunil has to push hard to make it work. Naresh’s romantic thread with Chitra Shukla is another dampener. These scenes just eat away the screen time than offering entertainment. Brahmanandam’s episode partially works. Whole second half runs on a single note with a lot of gibberish and nonsense.
Jayaprakash Reddy recollecting his memory and telling the same story from early morning is one of the funniest episodes in the film. Climax is just stretched for another fifteen minutes without much comedy. Silly Fellows has its moments of fun, but doesn’t get over the average mark at any point. It may appeal to the target audience with few episodes offering decent laughs. Silly Fellows should work with mass audience and is likely to end up as an average grosser at box office. It is definitely not the game-changer that Naresh and Bheemaneni desired for.
Verdict: Old School Comedy
