'Changure Bangaru Raja', produced by Ravi Teja, was released in theatres today (September 15). In this section, we are going to review the latest BO release.
Plot:
The story is set in a village named Duggada, wherein a gemstone hotspot keeps everyone on their toes. When it rains heavily, gemstones come to the foreground here. When Bangarraju (Karthik Ratnam) spots an Alexa Class 1 stone, he is in for a rollercoaster ride. Meanwhile, Bangarraju's rival Soma Naidu is found dead under a culvert. SI Sanyasi Rao (Ajay), who somehow dislikes Bangarraju, tries to frame him in the murder.
Tatarao (Satya), a buffaloes' caretaker, is dragged into this mess. In the meantime, a supari killer named Gateelu (Ravi Babu) is clueless due to his short-term memory loss problem.
Performances:
Karthik Rathnam gets to play his first-ever entertaining role (he was grim in 'Narappa' and semi-dull in 'Care Of Kancharapalem). The actor comes from a theatre background but his performance is not subtle or nuanced. He is not over-the-top, but he doesn't measure up either. Goldie Nissy, as his love interest, plays a compromised constable.
After shining in recent duds like 'Rangabali', Satya manages to be funny to a very limited extent. Ravi Babu plays that desperate supari killer with a memory loss problem; he fails to deliver laughs. Sunil is heard, not seen; he lends his voice to a stray dog named Veerabobbili. Ajay is boring in a negative role. Nithyasri of TikTok fame is seen as Satya's love interest.
Technical aspects:
Music director Krishna Saurabh's work feels like a rip-off. Most of the crime comedy scenes lack originality in terms of how their BGM has been done. Sundar NC's cinematography passes muster. Editor Karthik Vunnava doesn't get the opportunity to display his craftsmanship despite the hyperlink nature of the screenplay. The action direction by Karthik Kanteshwar is unintelligent.
Analysis:
Writer-director Satish Varma pens a comedy caper with a contrived screenplay and derivative jokes. The scenes are not incoherent but random. The overall narrative is disjointed; the screenplay choices look forced. We struggle to understand where the story is headed mainly because we are least invested in Bangaru Raju's journey. We don't feel relieved when he proves his innocence. After a point, we believe that Tatarao (Satya) won't add anything to the plot and he is just an excuse to keep the movie's run-time going.
Many village-based movies suffer from an obvious negative. The primary and/or secondary characters cross paths accidentally all the time. When this negative is wedded with the crime comedy genre, the artificiality only gets worse. In 'CBR', every character is just around for the asking. Just as the police officer searches for Bangaru Raju, the latter suddenly emerges before his very eyes while attempting to escape from thugs.
The intimidating cop harbors a strong dislike for the male lead, yet we fail to discover any justification for his hostile attitude towards him. By the time Ravi Babu's character is introduced, we are done with the deluge of cliched ideas and insubstantial elements on display.
One woman is a 'sound engineer'. Someone's partial blindness is mocked as 'Andhadhun'. Then there is the age-old element of short-term memory loss that our filmmakers rely on to generate outdated comedy. Too many obsolete ideas have been strung together in the name of comedy.
Closing Remarks:
'Changure Bangaru Raja' falls short in accomplishing the one task it was meant to excel at: eliciting laughter. As a producer, actor Ravi Teja delivers a film even sillier than his recent flops.
