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 About Our Rating Storyline: Satyam (Balakrishna) is do-gooder and a popular personality in a village, Venkatapuram where he is respected by all. Once he helps for the marriage of two lovers against the wishes of Chief Minister (Asuthosh Rana) which lead to altercation between them. On the other hand Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram a.k.a. Okka Magadu who was a freedom fighter in 1940’s takes up the mission of eliminating people who show negligence towards the public. What is the relationship between Satyam and Okka Magadu and how the system is cleansed up forms the rest of the story. Casting Performances: Bala Krishna did extraordinarily well in both the roles of Satyam and Okka Magadu. It is delight to watch Balayya doing an amazing performance in a scene where he helps two lovers to get married. However, Okka Magadu characterization is not that good enough to exploit the histrionics of Balayya. His old man getup highly resembles to that of Kamal Hassan in the film Bharateeyudu. Balayya dancing style appeared to be different in this movie and particularly, he tried variety steps in “ammatho cheppukunna nannatho cheppukunna” song. His performance in pre-interval episode where he delivers his trademark ferocity punching dialogues is much commended. Heroines: Nisha Kothari is cute with her fresh looks. She is very gorgeous with glamorous outfits in songs. She is restricted to just first half of the film and it’s a run of the mill character. Anushka enters the film before interval though it is also limited for songs in the second half of the film. She played a routine role as a girl who falls for hero. Simran’s special make-up as old woman is not impressive. Her performance in flashback episode is ok. Others: Ashutosh Rana (Bangaram fame) portrayed as the main villain of the film and is good. Kota Srinivasa Rao has couple of scenes to perform. Krishna Bhagavan and Raghu Babu did some comedy skits which are unimpressive. Others chipped in. TECHNICAL ASPECTS Story - Screenplay & Direction: Story of the film highly resembles with that of ‘Bharateeyudu’. There is nothing novel in it. Screenplay is just ok in the first half and loses its tempo as it goes. Pre-interval episodes are attracting. Second half is awful, highly anticipated flashback episode and characterization of Old Balayya is not impressive. Direction is run of mill. It’s a total fiasco from YVS, where one expects much more from him. Other Departments: Music is just OK. Except couple of songs all the numbers are dull on the screen. Background score is excellent. Dialogues by Chintapally Ramana are good particularly the dialogue about the caste in pre-interval episode. Editing by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao is not crispy. Art work by Anand Sai is good. Photography by Madhu A Naidu is moderate. Stunts by Kannal Kannan are ok as you can see lot of string work being used. Graphics looked very silly. Production values are of high standards. Analysis: First half of the movie is ok. Balakrishna’s emotional performance and pre-interval scenes are main positive points of the first half. Second half is awful. The much talked about flashback episode is not executed well. Climax is very much predictable and is a big weak ling. YVS Chowdary’s mark of style in canning the songs is highly missing. Story-Screenplay and Direction are not impressive. It can be clearly said that the much hyped Okka Magadu has not risen up to the expectations. On a whole, YVS disappoints. |