Young hero Naveen Polishetty's stars started shining brightly in a sensational on the sky of Tollywood silverscreen ever since he cast a magic spell with his performance in films like Agent Sai Srinivas Athreya, Jathi Ratnalu. He was last seen alongside Anushka in Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty. On Sankranti eve he is coming to enthrall all with his upcoming film titled Anaganaga Oka Raju.
The film is helmed by debudante Maari. Interest levels are increasing as the story is written by Naveen Polishetty himself along with Maari and Chinmay. Anaganaga Oka Raju's OTT rights have been bagged by Netflix for a fancy sum and streaming will be after the completion of its theatrical run. Let us findout whether Naveen Polishetty gave fulll treat to movie lovers during Sankranti.
Anaganaga Oka Raju story revolves around a youngster who dreams of becoming rich by any means and where this leads to and what changes it brings in his life form the interesting part.
Raju (Naveen Polishetty) to woo a beautiful girl Charulata (Meenakshi Chaudhary) for a reason. What is Raju's region, why is he after Charulata, and what roles her dad Bhupathi Raju (Rao Ramesh), Erri Babu (Tarak Ponnappa) form the rest of the developments?
Naveen Polishetty carries the film on his shoulders. He with his natural and realistic performance took the scenes to another level. He with his style and swag endears himself to all with his screen presence. He delivered dialogues with ease and impressed with his mannerisms.
Meenakshi Chaudhary looked gorgeous and beautiful on the big screen. She is ok with her performance. He danced energetically in the songs.
There are many known actors in the film they performed according to their roles. Tarak Ponnappa is ok in his role. Rao Ramesh got a limited role while Chammak Chandra, Mahesh Achanta,Bhadram evoked few laughs.
Anaganaga Oka Raju's story is provided by newcomer Maari. Infact the film virtually has no story. He depended on generating humour in all the scenes and entertain movie lovers. For most of the part in the first half, everything turns out to be routine. Even the so called comedy scenes are drawn from previous other films offering nothing new.
Te only saving grace is Naveen Polishetty who elevated even the routine scenes. His hilarious antics and comic acts entertain movie lovers taking the narration forward. Naveen Polishetty's character, the scenes featuring Meenakshi Chaudhary and Rao Ramesh offers nothing new along with the scenes involving other characters. The first half ends with a predictable interval twist setting the tone for the second half making viewers expect a better one.
The entire second half focusses on rivarly, election campaigning and even the entertainment quotient drops considerabaly. The pre climax is loaded with emotional scenes before the film comes to an end with a routine fight. There is nothing much to talk about the story, screenplay and direction and it seems the the director and the writer concentrated only on few hilarious scenes drawing inspiration from the youtube shorts and reels.
The music and background music is tuned by Mickey J Meyer. The tune for Bheemavaram Balma is good. The song is shot in the backdrop of visually appealing sets. The other songs just turned out to be just below average. The background score tuned failed to add value to the scenes.
Yuvraj's cinematography is just ok. It is in sync with the story and is barely average. The editing could have been far better. There are many scenes that slowed the pace of the narration. Production values are good.
Altogether, Anaganaga Oka Raju turns out to be a witty entertainer minus a real story. Director Maari on debut managed to entertain viewers with hilarious scenes featuring Naveen Polishetty though the film had no story. Though Maari held the direction mantle, it was Naveen Polishetty who had a say in the story and weilded considerable influence.
The trio comprising of Naveen Polishetty, Maari and Chinmay decided to concentrate on Naveen's trademark hilarious antics and included scenes drawing inspiration from social media shorts and reels. The first half after the routine elements, picks pace in the screenplay and narration and Naveen's witty oneliners and mannerisms and gags make viewers smile heartily.
With the first half ending in a predictable and decent tone after a not so sedate start, many expected a better second half. However the second half turned out to be even more weaker and it seems the trio lost the direction just by concentrating only on village politics.
In a hialarious and comical films, one neednot have a strong story. If the hilarious dialogues and jokes manage to create laughting riot, there is no stopping the film's success. In Anaganaga Oka Raju, Naveen Polishetty scored only average marks as the screenpley lacked consistency. Little finetuning of the script, racy screenplay and better second half would have taken the film to the next level. Considering all these elements, Cinejosh goes with a 2.75 rating for Anaganaga Oka Raju.