In so far as writing a screenplay that doesn't complicate matters for the audience, this film steals a march. Raju and Amulya continue to achieve success in their mission slowly and steadily, and it all ends with the hero, hitherto regarded as an irresponsible son by his father, becoming a real-life hero. Besides it is also about Sapthagiri, Urvashi, Shakalaka Shankar, Supreet, Dhanraj and Supreet doing their bit to add to the comedy of errors and confusion. The first half establishes the incident and the second half is more about delineating the dog-stealing incident more elaborately through occasional revisiting. The director of 'Venkatadri Express' fame has done a fairly good job in telling and executing a not-so-novel idea with doses of fun. It is now up to Raju to trace that dog and in the process, he faces obstacles from a whole range of funny characters and Kesava Reddy, the one major character with no comic side. His hatred towards dogs makes him impulsively hand over Amulya's puppy to dog cullers and this threatens to lead to their break-up. After coming to Hyderabad with Prabhas Seenu, Raju fell in love with Amulya (Surbhi), the future fiance of Kesava Reddy (played by Harish Uttaman). Moments after running away from the scene in a ramshackle van, Raju stars narrating his life days before the incident. The film starts with Raju's (Sharwanand) attempt to steal a puppy from a guarded woman as his uncle (Prabhas Seenu) and Sapthagiri become his team willingly and reluctantly, respectively. The incident changes the course of many lives and the same is revealed in installments. Merlapaka Gandhi writes a range of curious characters, most of which are interlinked to one particular incident. M Gandhi has done a good job though for the small budget that seems to have been given to him.Modelled after the screenplay technique of 'Vantage Point', this film blends this imported technique with quirky comedy of especially South Indian variety. Sharwa is impressive as usual but the music or editing is not really impressive.
Those who want a story can take a break from this one as there isn't much to dig beyond what appears on the outside. Those who love light-hearted comedies might find this movie to their liking. You have to wait till the end to find out if there is a method to the madness or if the whole movie was just comedy interwoven with each other. In fact, Saptagiri and Seenu take away more frame time trying to make the audience laugh and succeeding as one after another, funny scenes keeping happening with our protagonist in search of the puppy. Surabhi, as the lady he falls head over heels for, adds a little glamour to the story but beyond that, there isn't really much of a point to her presence. However, Sharwanand has an effortless presence in movies and his fans will once again like what they see as he shows that he can pull off straight face comedy just as beautifully as he does serious roles. If the pivotal moment of a movie is the hero kidnapping the heroine's puppy and then setting out to find it, you can be sure there is nothing to take seriously about the movie.
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