Vishnu is Venky an aspiring kick boxer who lives with his loving family. Tapsee is Pooja, a medico, who just listens to her brother Narasimha (Prakash Raj). Her brother wants to become an MLA. One day she sits near Gandhi statue on Necklace Road, on the other side sits our man both licking ice cream. The girl's brother sees them and he has an Iago-like sidekick who starts imagining things. Venky has a bike which runs out of petrol during key events of his life, like when he is helping a couple elope, like when he spots a girl jumping into a lake.
The plot too is similar, it keeps running out of steam every few minutes leaving the viewer hemming and hawing.
Vishnu has multiple presences in the movie, at one point of time he is a young man who wants to be a kick-boxing champ and at another he wants to hold aloft a banner of Telugu pride and regional pride. As a young man he is natural but when he imitates the mannerism and dialogue delivery of a yesteryear actor it is trite, bothersome and you feel like getting on to twitter to trash it. The fighting sequences shift between ultra-realism and digital wire tricks. In the process we don't know whether the hero is a superman or an angry man off the street. Even the little boy who came to see kick-boxing went back disappointed.
Vastadu Naa Raju is a movie where young people act, have effervescent energy, a believable story but unfortunately it is directed by infirm old people living in the past. If the editor of the movie had forgotten his scissors at home, he should have picked up a meat-cleaver and we might have had a good movie. Perhaps.
The film has a U certification despite the fact that some of the lyrics are explicit and there is lot of skin show.
Vastadu Naa Raju
Genre: Love story
Story: The longest misunderstanding in the history of film industry.
Cast: Vishnu, Tapsee Pannu, Prakash Raj, Tanikella Bharani, Sayaji Shinde
Director: Hemant Madhukar
Music: Mani Sharma
Bottomline: Four dimple cheeks are too much
