Keratam Review

Yet another boy from Rebel Star Krishnamraju's family made debut as hero in Tollywood. While Krishnamraju's nephew Siddharth Rajkumar made his entry as hero, Aiswarya and Rakul Preet Singh made their entry as heroines, while director Gautham Patnaik, brother of RP Patnaik, wielded the megaphone for the first time. Let us see how these first timers fared in this film based on teenage love story in its backdrop.

Siddhu (Siddharth Rajkumar) has four friends and all of them study together in a school. There are three girls, who join the gang and all of them move very friendly with each other. All these friends complete their plus two and join the college. When they shed the school uniform, they understand that they grew up. Siddhu develops intimacy with Geetha and thinks he is in love with her. His friends too encourage him. At this juncture, a called Robo teases Geeta and Siddhu challenges him and defeats him in a bike race. This further bonds the friendship between Siddhu and Gita. To take revenge for his defeat, Robo tries to molest one of the girls in their group in the college lab. This forces the friends to attack him and thrash him. During the police enquiry, the friends confess that Sidhu had a tiff with Robo because he is in love with Gita. The police warn him not to indulge in fights and concentrate on his career. Sidhu's friends desert him as he refuses to ignore Geetha. Even Gita bows to her father. Siddhu wail inconsolably till he comes across another pretty girl called Sangeeta. He plays all the tricks to win her love and she remains friendly with him. Did Sidhu win the love of Sangeeta? Did he realise that the teenage attraction is not love but only infatuation. What kind of lesson did Siddhu learn in his life? What happened to his friends? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

Hardly there are any interesting points in the film, but for the message in the end that teenagers should concentrate on studies and career instead of becoming slaves to infatuation. The film lacked comedy and the entertainment values are very less. Though Venumadhav tried to tickle the funny bone of audiences the poor running of the film erases the pleasure of enjoying the comedy in a whiff. When it comes to performance, Siddhartha Rajkumar had a bubbly face and tried his best to perform. But being a novice, he could not show the expressions fairly. Though looking pretty, Aishwarya and Rakul Preet Singh did not get any chance to perform. In fact, one had to blame the director for failing to extract the talents in the artistes. The director failed to give good characterisation to any of the artistes. He could not highlight the glamour of the heroines.

The artiste who played the role of Robo looked a bit promising for comedy villain roles. Senior artistes like Bhimaneni Srinivasa Rao, Kavita, Yamini and others did justice to their roles.

Cinematography by A Venkatesh is good in parts and the inconsistency in lighting turned a drawback. Editing by Suresh Urs is far way behind. Music by Joshua Sridhar is not that impressive and the re-recording failed to elevate scenes. The director of the film Gautham Patnaik failed to pen a good script, screenplay and dialogues. The storyline taken by the director is good but while trying to explain on the screen as to how the youth are spoiling their career in the name of love, he made several mistakes.

Blame the director for poor narration and unimpressive screenplay.

Released on: 26th Aug, 2011