Cast: Allu Arjun, Srikanth, Catherine Tresa, Rakul Preet, Aadhi, Jayaprakash, Sai Kumar, Brahmanandam.
Director: Boyapati Sreenu
Red earth, pouring rain and mindless action is how Boyapati Sreenu made this film in his head (probably). It’s a different case on-screen, though.
Allu Arjun falls in love with Catherine Tresa when he catches her sweeping a street. The “lough out loud" part of the movie comes from Catherine’s character. She plays an MLA (not ‘My Lovely Angel’ as the song goes. She’s a Member of Legislative Assembly). A prettier MLA hasn’t been seen on-screen. Even Jayalalithaa would nod in agreement. Sekhar Kammula’s protagonist Rana Daggubati in ‘Leader’ is ridiculed for the choice of his clothes but Rana gets to the point with his conviction. Sekhar makes us stop worrying about how Rana is; he’d rather let us focus on what he is. I’m not expecting that from Sreenu. Still, it’s funny how the director thinks it’s going to work. MLA cries for the innocent and the dead. And she shakes a leg to “Private Party". She could have played an advocate or a college student. It wouldn’t have mattered much.
Rakul Preet comes into the picture and Catherine disappears. That’s the green signal saying the hero and the villain are going to come face-to-face. In what was supposed to be a clash of the titans, the film turns it into a one-man show. The villain is so weak in front of the hero; he becomes ‘Eega’s’ Sudeep. An all-powerful man becomes a shadow of his earlier self within a moment. Vairam Dhanush (Aadhi) is an interesting character created for the sole purpose of getting squashed by the hero. The sort of buildup he gets throughout the movie, I thought he was going to at least make an attempt to run the protagonist down with his intelligence or with the men at his disposal. That doesn’t happen. Who has the guts to ruffle the hero’s feathers of a Sreenu film? Nobody!
Srikanth plays a dude (actually, a friendly uncle). His character reminded me of the chap he played in Chiranjeevi’s ‘Shankar Dada M.B.B.S.’ and ‘Shankar Dada Zindabad’ where he supported Chiru with the utmost care, affection, and loyalty. In ‘Sarrainodu’, also, he does the same. Had Sai Kumar and Jayaprakash swapped their roles, there would have been a chance for an emotional outburst.
The good versus bad stories never go out of fashion. Mythology is full of that. Our films are going to be full of that. The problem is not in creating a story based on two men of differing ethical senses. The problem is in allowing every cliché enter the story and discarding every logical argument out of the window. The level of importance given to Allu Arjun’s biceps is missing in the importance the writer-director has given to the story.
Allu Arjun’s recent films ‘Race Gurram’ and ‘S/O Satyamurthy’ weren’t blue birds in the sky. They were ordinary films with a certain amount of entertainment package. ‘Sarrainodu’ is stuck between the action mode and entertainment mode and it tries to swim under the bridge with expired commercial qualities.
Rating: 2.5/ 5
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