This automobile lacks its basic ingredient of ignition itself, the spark plug.
There is so much fire sprawled in the film, but suddenly this fire does not have a spark that would encourage me. The starting titles go through fire, there are lot of vehicles blown in fire, men are set on fire, yet it seems so lackluster.
Deva Katta took a well worked out story that was in movies since the age of "On the Waterfront" (remade as Ghulam in Hindi) of 1950's and added nativity and a load of action and more of unwanted songs to make this a Telugu film that has a certain format. An introduction of hero, well placed fights, an emotional backdrop that drives heroes motives, and even a routine comedy side-kick and a hero-heroine thing to bring the so-called romance. What I believe is that, he forgot to add that one-thing that makes a film a good film, that is the vision and voice of a director himself.
Sticking to safeguards, makes this film run of the mill affair and does not make it stand out. This film has nothing that was great and yes I agree most of the stuff was mediocre yet I would not be surprised if this film is embraced by Telugu audiences.
If I dig into the technicalities I find huge flaws, the production design was too lackadaisical and listless. The director did not even bother to take care and back date the film aptly. The film is completely lethargic in editing, songs come and go for no reason, the fights are too heavy when they could have been more subtle. The climax is so hurried that I thought the villain was built up well just to be wasted in the end. Veterans like Tanikella Bharani and even Brahmanandam are under used.
The biggest challenge I found was to bear Naga Chaitanya for nearly 3hours. That is one heck of a task and indeed one of the toughest when you are bound to seat in a movie theater facing him in your face. There is some serious problem with this guy. He makes awkward face as if biting his teeth unnecessarily, his eyes do not show any emotion and his body language is too plain, it seems as if his body below the neck is unresponsive. I wish he pulls up his socks and learns some serious skills in acting if he has to carry the film on his own shoulders.
I must primarily say that I am not an average Telugu audience but rather an aficionado who is passionate about films, watch different kind of films and derive pleasure in varied stories and aspects of film making itself. Thus, I can say that I am not the right one to review Telugu films as I find most of them annoying. Yet, I dare to review hoping for a change and the best part is I still dare to review my rather too critical reviews too.
This was pure average film as per me and for those who thought that this film was good, I have no comments but will admit that perhaps, I am too critical. A 1/5 for this, just for some good dialogs which are actually wasted in the attempt to please the masses and pass off as a commercial film.
http://braddugg.blogspot.in/2014/06/autonagar-surya-2014-telugu.html
