Panjaa Movie Review

Hit or Flop…A Disaster or a Blockbuster, craze for Pawan Kalyan is undeterred and expectations on his new film always reach the skies. And here again we have Panjaa…Powerstar’s new film where he sports never before look releasing this week. Movie is directed by Stylish director Vishnuvardhan who earlier directed “Billa” in Tamil. Sarah Jane Dias and Anjali Lavania play the female leads.

Plot...not spoiler:

Jai (Pawan Kalyan) is loyal aide to gangster Bhagwan (Jackishroff). Everything goes fine until the arrival of Bhagwan’s son Munna (Adivi sesh) enters the town from foreign.  Things change upside down when Munna pricks everyone with his sadistic nature. Jai now has to choose between loyalty and controlling Munna.

Actors

Right from the looks, it’s a totally different Pawan we get on-screen. Sporting a beard throughout brings that rugged look much needed for that role. Pawan wonderfully plays with great ease and slightly deviates in intervals with his superb comedy timing. There are several scenes where he reminds us his old films…Whether posing like chiru...or dancing for “Dappu” in Paparayudu song or when heroine asks whether he ever did Karate in past reminding Tammudu. All in all, it’s a treat and every actor tries to play different once in a while and Pawan got that chance.

Adivi Sesh who played Munna (made a movie Karma entirely in US in past) is next important character. He played the role of Sadist to the core. Especially the pre-interval scene, he just builds up the scene that audience themselves want to kick him off the screen. So it’s all in the acting and he is someone to watch out more in future.

Sarah Jane Dias is just adequate. She is decent enough in simple costumes and provided needed act. But she is not the one who could get into our mind once the film is done.

 Anjali Lavania though had brief role sizzles more throughout her presence. She has solo song on her and she is damn hot.

We know that Pawan and Ali are great friends off-screen and Ali’s role is just extension to that friendship. So the comedy timing between them is more like natural and good to watch.

One guy who got huge response on-screen next to Pawan is Brahmanandam. It’s not something different he did, but he is much awaited in the serious movie and he sprinkled the laughs and brought some energy and he has whole “Paparayudu” song written on him.

Jackie Shroff gets a good role and does it well. Subbaraju is very good. Tanikella Bharani as his manager is fine. Atul Kulakarni and rest are limited.

A different film in one word.

Set up in Mafia background and at the same time, bringing the story touching up with good emotions is not an easy task. And director Vishnuvardhan succeeds in it for greater extent. He builds up each character perfectly in no time. He builds up that conflicting rivalry between Munna and Jai under currently and fires it high by the interval. Entire first half is stylish and thoroughly indulges you giving you that fresh flavor.

Second half goes to faraway lands and it’s a U-turn for us. That way we get a much needed deviation into greenery and wonderful village atmosphere (Pollachi). Then we get this hilarious episode of Brahmanandam and that song “Paparayudu” that’s almost the half the screen presence of Brahmanandam. The entire episode helps the movie a lot. So how the things come into place when the two worlds meet at the end forms the climax.

Good Work off-screen!!

Thanks to the director Vishnuvardhan who has shown us something new on screen than the run-of-mill movies. The entire first half is delight to watch that too in utter silence. He had a gripping screenplay in first half, but it loosens up a little in second. Love story still needs to be worked on. While the love track reminds of Balu, The conflict between Gangster’s son and his aide reminds me of Prasthanam movie for a while.

Yuvan’s music need to be much better. Title track of Panjaa just comes at the rolling titles at the end!! “Elaa Elaa” is good. And “Paparayudu” is the best of all. “Anukoneledu gaa” is trimmed t o two lines in movie as movie does not offer much scope to it. Background score is good. But it’s an opportunity lost for Yuvan.

P.S.Vinod’s cinematography is brilliant and scores equally with slick shots in first half and loads of greenery in second. Producers Shobu, Neelima etc made a commendable job.

Dialogues by Abburi Ravi need applause. “Saayam chesina vaadu Krutagnata choopinchaka povadam entha tappo, saayam chesina vaadu Krutagnatha korukodam anthe thappu. “Bhakthi tho chesedi punyam, dharmanga chesedi daanam, em aasinchakunda chesedi saayam” are good ones.

Finally…

An honest approach in telling a story in a straightforward manner and rightly aided by good technical team. But the entertainment quotient is lesser and thus limits the reach of the movie to great extent. To see a different Pawan and a different film, do watch it.

Rating.

3/5 for that way out of box effort and style.