Saturday, November 5, 2011

Mogudu Movie Review - by Chaitanya Kumar Vummethala


Q: When was the last time you had a great time for the first time, in your life? 
Ans: Definitely not while watching Mogudu! 


There are two reasons for this question and answer, 1 being the dialogue in the movie Mogudu, and the other being the great hopes I had on the movie (from KV) and always thought that this would become the best movie based on the family relations and especially about the portrayal of Mogudu character (as the title sounds). Lets see how did Krishna Vamsi with his team failed / passed in portraying the subject.

First bad luck for the team Mogudu was its timing (list of movies piping up to release) also Mogudu being released with expectations in tollywood lovers, audience and movie critics due to the presence of Creative Director, Krishna Vamsi himself, with the final output not matching with the same is the biggest blow.


Story, Screenplay & Direction: In a single line if I should say about this department, "Krishna Vamsi did not finished his work on the script of Mogudu", while the theme of the movie has great value - director has definitely failed in bringing the outcome as per his plans! 

As per my knowledge the first mistake he did was, not keen on cleverly mixing the subject in the second half of the movie with the first half, by using key elements like powerful scenes including emotional dialogues between lead couple and among the family members of both families (like he did in Murari, which will surely help the audience to involve thoroughly in these kind of movies), movie was actually going quite good until the interval, but the way he distracted the subject with useless songs and scenes (both in the first half and second half) took him to the wrong end.

Other mistakes in the movie are choosing wrong music director, leaving masters like Mani Sharma behind for this project, who would have done 100% justice to movies of this genre. Krishna Vamsi was totally confused in identifying the need of key scenes at right time and the Screenplay was totally pale. On the other hand, KV was most successful in depicting the Characterizations of both the lead pair as well as the rest of the casting. 

Dialogue Writer: Bheem, was the culprit of the final output of Mogudu. As I am keep on telling - emotional dialogues are the key factors for these kind of family oriented movies and here the team has failed miserably. 

Music: They say if the Music album is hit, then the movie is half hit. But I would say if the music is not hit, then for sure it will effect the movie very badly -in this case it is very much so. Babu Shankar, was good only at parts (while heroine Introduction & in Mogudu title song) and failed in the rest of the movie. Waste of time writing more than this on BS.

Editing: Gautham Raju has little scope and even there he failed to do justice, he should remove one complete song and break two other songs (including intro song), apart from few useless scenes - this would have helped him in trimming the length of the movie.

Cinematography: Srikanth, did a decent job. Particularly he helped Tapsee Pannu in grabbing more opportunities in tollywood, by the way he captured the beauty of her. Production values can be clearly seen on his shots, a talented technician.

Art Department by duo Hari Varma & Kushal Srinivas was good and appreciable. Sets used for marriage are awesome, apart from other indoor sets used in hero's house.

Fights by Vijay, little scope but were apt and reached peaks at one place.

Artists Performances:
Cast: Gopichand, Tapsee, Shraddha Das, Rajendra Prasad, Naresh, Roja, Harsha Vardhan, Ahuti Prasad, Geetanjali, Maharshi Raghava, Venu Madhav, Pragati,  etc

While Gopichand has once again proved his mettle by handling these kind of subjects with ease, its Tapsee who excelled all the way (with her own voice) and proved her stamina. The lead pair was a suitable choice by the makers of the movie, Mogudu. Shraddha Das was lucky to get a performance oriented role, for which she did justice. Legendary actors Rajendra Prasad and Naresh as usual excelled in their respective roles and Roja was fit to the role, while others did justice to their respective roles (other than hero colleagues). Single reputed comedian in the movie, Venu Madhav has tried his best to entertain the family audience in the second half of the movie.

Overall Analysis: One of my friends always says that if he was given a chance to rate the present generation Tollywood Directors, then he wants to write Krishna Vamsi's name for the Rank1 Director. I think now he should change his idea - at least after watching  Mogudu. However in terms of selection of the story line and the theme of the subject, Krishna Vamsi did an excellent job. Though the final verdict is poor to above average, I would rate the first half of the movie as 3.5 / 5 and these kind of the movies are very much required in the industry to save the human values and relationships in today's mechanical lives. 

Again when it comes to the plot of the movie, one can clearly identify an incompleteness in script-work and a week narration, music and re-recording coupled with lack of emotion and punch-less dialogues are the main drawbacks for the thumbs down of Mogudu, from the audience.

With this subject, the final output of the movie can be made much better - than the way it has actually come out. Nevertheless Mogudu is onetime watchable movie and can see again on TVs (once the DVD releases), a very good underlying message is there in the movie - i.e., simple misunderstandings and useless traditional customs may lead to severe problems, if people are superstitious and rigid on their beliefs. (Pattu Vidupulu Vundali)!

Commercially, Mogudu being made on a moderate budget will at most collect 80% of its investment. 

My rating for Mogudu is 2.75/5.

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