Kick- Telugu Cinema Gets Cheeky
Ok so what do we usually expect from a Telugu movie these days, especially when it stars a popular hero? That the hero will play to the gallery and work on his strengths. That the movie will contain the typical mass elements like action, around 6 songs which includes an item number, loud villains who are more or less caricatures, nearly all the well known comedians doing some kind of inane stuff in the name of comedy, one or more heroines trying to give their share of glamour quotient, some ‘punch’ dialogues powerful enough to disturb our ear drums and so on & so forth.
So it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Kick- the latest Telugu release which has Ravi Teja and Ileana and also introduces the Tamil actor- Shaam to Telugu Cinema. So am I saying that this movie is a trendsetter and it breaks conventional traditions? Is this movie going to be looked upon as the movie to emulate in the years to come? Oh! No, not at all. Surendar Reddy the director has tried to experiment albeit a little within the limits of commercial Telugu potboilers keeping the image of Ravi Teja in mind and at the same time trying to avoid a lot of the mandatory requirements associated with such films.
So the plot is all about Kalyan (Ravi Teja ), an engineering graduate for whom getting a ‘kick’ out of anything is the sole mantra to keep him hooked to any activity. Hence he keeps moving in & out of jobs whenever he feels the job has no kick to offer him. He is supported in this by his father ( Sayaji Shinde ) who believes that he couldn’t do what his son is doing i.e unwind and take life easy. In a very entertaining encounter Kalyan comes across Naina (Ileana) and they start liking each other. One day when Naina gets to know that Kalyan has quit yet another job, she decides she’s had enough of him & decides to get out of the relationship.
And then Naina and her family move to Malaysia where one day she meets Kalyan Krishna (Shaam) a cop from Hyderabad who has come to Malaysia to meet her formally before getting engaged. After Naina tells Kalyan Krishna her story, he too opens up and says his biggest mission currently is to catch a guy who has been doing some high value robberies of late and playing a cat & mouse game with him. Apparently the thief is also now in Malaysia and that’s the main reason for Kalyan Krishna’s visit to Malaysia.
Of course the audience need not have to be smarter than a 5th grade student to know that the thief is none other than Kalyan. So how does the cat and mouse game carry on from there? Who gets Ileana in the end & what’s the reason behind Kalyan becoming a thief is what the rest of the movie is all about. The cinematography by Rasool Ellore and the music by Thaman.S have nothing special to contribute to the film. The movie has an ensemble supporting cast which includes Brahmanandam,Venu Madhav,Ali,Jayaprakash Reddy,Kota etc. And it’s certainly nice to see Jayaprakash Reddy and Kota in comic roles and not having any fiery dialogues as usual.
Brahmanandam raises a few laughs in what is a cakewalk of a role for him. Ali and Venu Madhav are o.k. Shaam is quite decent for his 1st Telugu movie and yes it’s nice to see Ileana after a long hiatus. We all know that the lady is not just pretty but can also act given a chance (remember Pokiri?). So after virtually seeing only Tamannah & Anushka this year it’s nice to see Ileana finally who does justice to her role whenever she appears on screen – of course towards the end she just disappears. Is it a matter of convenience, Surendar Reddy garu?
Coming to Ravi Teja or motor mouth as some of the media in A.P calls him, he seems to be relishing every bit of his time in the movie. He does get to do a lot of comedy which he is good at and also does well overall. But of course this is certainly not in the same league of some of his other films like Vikramarkudu or Dubai Seenu, but certainly not a bad attempt. Watch out for the scene where he does an imitation of Amitabh Bachchan- quite hilarious. All said and done it takes some time before one gets hooked to the movie, after which it’s a reasonably decent ride.
Talking about the usual stereotypes that I mentioned in the beginning of the article let me tell you all that Kick is a movie with popular stars but it has no item numbers, no loud villains ( in fact no villain at all ) , has no powerful ‘punch’ dialogues and nothing untoward in the name of glamour. Considering that the movie seems to have steered clear of these typical stereotypes associated with a big star Telugu movie and at the same time still decently entertains, the movie is to be credited. For the Telugu movie audience in A.P, with the scorching summer in full peak there is at least something to watch and cool themselves.
Tags: Amitabh Bachchan, Brahmanandam, Ileana, Rasool Ellore, Ravi Teja, Sayaji Shinde, Shaam, Surendar Reddy
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
somebody explain y do they have the gala gala (pokiri) song right after a dhamaal action sequence…
Well Magik- actually I should have written about this in my article on stereotyping- in a typical telugu masala movie- 6 songs ( not more,not less ) are a must and not too much of thinking is given on how to fit it in the narrative.in fact the 6th song would in fact even be a very fast dance number,mostly tapori style
hahaha… ho gaya kalyan!
Quit watching Telugu flicks for sometime now..always wanted to do a post on the “template telugu cinema”…but the motivation dies when people started loving some movie where Brahmanandan’s 10 minute comedy “track” was reason enough for people to hail it! Enough!
haha…. true that OM. telugu movies these days for the most part are indeed TEMPLATE movies. the usual song-dances ( 6 of them). 3-4 fight scenes where SUMO’s fly and explosions happen and gravity defying stunts happen. The regular comedy track by brahmanandam, ali, venu madhav and sunil and some family senti stuff. Most of the movies happen because of COMBINATIONS – they seem to concentrate more on Hero-heroine combo, hero-director combo, or director -musician combo and producer-director combo – which have either been successes before or its a new combination.
With the exception of Chandrasekhar yeleti, Sekhar Kammulla and a couple of other new directors, telugu cinema is pretty much TEMPLATE.
Usually the comedy is good in most of the telugu movies and even though the movie would suck, the comedy is usually good.Ravi Teja’s movies are usually comic and masala time-pass movies….
OM,Bipin- yes template films are in plenty in Telugu cinema these days. but forget about Shekhar Kammula or Chandrasekhar Yeleti, we do know they are exceptions,even within the commercial set up we do have movies like Ready which are quite good to watch.Will recommend Kick similarly.
ready, kick, all these movies simply suck…the telugu movie industry is the worst industry in today’s times…and i cant believe some one recommend it!
@ James- have you actually seen Ready or Kick? or for that matter any of the recent Telugu films?yes Telugu movie industry is not having a great time right now.but same is the case of other languages too like Kannada,Malayalam & even Bollywood (2009).so that doesnt mean we dont acknowledge atleast the decent movies rite?
@Sethu,
i agree with you.
But Tamil Fils are doing reasonably well.
Malayalam Film also had a good time.
But i doubt Telugu film ever produced good stuff.
Kannada i do not want to comment atleast some telugu movies are guilty pleasures.
Kannada movies, they make such bad remakes,watching kannada movies are like going thru chineese torture.
I think we had some non-formulaic movies in 2008. Movies like Ashta Chamma and Gamyam come to my mind immediately. Really looking forward to Prayanam this year.
@ sethu
yes, READY was really good. I enjoyed the comedy and I like all Sreenu Vaitla’s movies DHEE, READY, DUBAI SEENU ,VENKI were all good comedies, which a bunch of friends can sit down and have a great time watching. I like Ravi Teja’s KRISHNA.
I watch all kinds of movies, if you enjoy the great movies , there’s no reason to not enjoy a masala entertainer.
@randomnumber
Ashta Chamma, Gamyam were good. I am also looking fwd to Prayanam.
I heard NENU MEEKU TELUSA was good,I missed that one.
@ cinemausher- I do know that Tamil films are doing well & thats why I didnt mention about them.Also Malayalam movies probably were the best in the 80’s & 90’s- now struggling for the last few years.But you are wrong about Telugu cinema- movies of directors like K.Vishwanath,Bapu etc have always been there as examples of good movies.And even now we have people like Shekhar Kammula,Chandrasekhar Yeleti etc who make good movies.
@ Random number,bipin-
2008 really saw some good small movies like Ashta Chemma,Gamyam,Avakai Biriyani,Vinayakudu,Nacchavule etc.Even movies like Kotha Bangaru Lokam was more of a small movie ( of course it had a big name backing it).
Nenu Meeku Telusa- was a good attempt,I found the songs, titles really funky.There’s a chase sequence in it which is extremely well picturised.
guyz this is the last time i am visiting this blog…got hooked to it thinking its a blog of cinema…i didnt know its becoming a blog of gossipers, bekkar people who hang out in cafes of small town talking chutiya pictures…some one save this blog and filter the posts….kick, ready and what not….plss and bye
james- are you mad? Where does the article or any of the comments have any gossip of any sort to offer? And whats with your choice of anguage & attitude? you are not doing any of us any service by visiting & commenting.In fact if this is the kind of attitude & language you use, you wouldnt be welcome on any blog or community.
get a life dude, and yeah all of us live in the big cities too my friend, who gave you any impression we hang out in cafes of small towns?
ok sir…thanks for enlightening me with wisdom…kick is great…kick is great cinema…i take my words back…kick gets cheeky and everything possible which makes you happy:)…now cheer up my friend…we all have too much time in life to think of these films…
@ james – you didnt like Kick, fine nothing wrong in it.FYI no where I have I called it a masterpiece or new age cinema.All said & done not all are expected to feel the same about a movie.So as long as you felt the movie is not good its still ok, but what certainly was unwarranted was the language & the attitude your comment seemed to project.Anyways thanks for trying to make me happy