Shivaji, Navdeep and Nandu are starring in Dhandoraa directed by Murali Kanth Devasoth. The film is based on real life incidents and it is releasing on 25 December as X Mas special. Dhandoraa's OTT rights have been bagged by Amazon Prime Video and its streaming will be after the completion of its theatrical run. Let us see what Dhandoraa offered to movie lovers.
Dhandoraa story revolves around the caste based politics and feelings in the village and how it impacts the lives of youngsters who fall in love and go against the wishes of their parents and their community.
Vishnu (Nandu Vijay Krishna) reaches his house in a village to inform about his love with Kavitha (Mounika Reddy), only to find startling developments involving his father, Sivaji (Sivaji), who has strong caste feelings and his sister Suji aka Sujatha (Manika Chikkala). What are those developments and how it impacts their lives and how it is connected to Manika's lover Ravi (Ravi Krishna), Babai (Muralidhar Goud), Ranga (Kamal), Sujatha Jr (Raadhya), Seetha Ram (Navadeep) and others form interesting part.
Sivaji came up with an impactful and powerful performance. He showed variations in his body language, expressions and dialogue delivery. He emoted according to the situation captivating all. He delivered dialogues with ease bringing in his experience. The way he elevated his character arc from a castiest person to a person filled with remorse in a slow and steady manner connects chords with the viewers.
Ravi Krishna came up with energetic and lively performance as a lover who also shows his responsibility towards the girl's father and her feelings towards her. He looked good in the role of a youngster who is exuberant and at the same time responsible.
Manika Chikkala impressed with her performance who gets crushed between the father and lover and then decides to go for the utmost sacrifice. She looked bubbly and came up with spirited performance.
Nandu Vijay Krishna showed good expressions and emotions as the son who is forward thinking and tries to change his father. He is good showing his feelings as a son hearing the tragic news and also tolerating the behavior of his wife.
Mounika Reddy is good in her part and she got couple of good dialogues during the pre climax. Navadeep played an interesting and entertaining role and it comes with a good twist which is however predictable. He made his presence felt with his timely oneliners and witty dialogues.
Bindu Madhavi got an interesting character and she did full justice to her role. Her scenes with Sivaji stands out. Raadhya who played the important role of young Sujatha, captivated all delivering powerful dialogues in the climax. Others like Muralidhar Goud, Rajasekhar Aningi, Aditi Bhavaraju,Anusha performed according to their roles.
Dhandoraa story is penned by Murali Kanth Devasoth. He came up with a rural entertainer with case based elements and wove an emotional love story around it. Many such stories came earlier but Murali Kanth Devasoth decided to impress viewers adding powerful emotional elements and hard hitting dialogues.
The narration starts in a slow and predictable manner establishing various characters and the love story assumes similar trope. Only during the runup to the interval bang, the narration picks up pace and it ends with a good interval bang leaving many questions unanswered setting the stage for the second half.
Many expects the second half to be more powerful but the emotional elements involving Sivaji and Bindu Madhavi, though thought provking at times, slowed the pace of the narration. It is only during the pre climax and climax, the narration picks up pace and the hard hitting dialogues makes an impact turning the film into a decent watch.
While Murali Kanth Devasoth's story is assumes predictable plot, he tried to be creative with his screenplay going back and forth at times generating interest. But after a point of time, it turned routine. He made good impact at times with the dialogues and the direction is fine.
Mark K Robin's songs are situational. The songs are melodious and are shot well in the backdrop of scenic and natural locations. He with his background music elevated the scenes adding value to the narration. The cinematography of Venkat R. Shakamuri is good. He showed the village atmosphere in a realistic way giving the natural and authentic look to the narration.
The editing of Srujana Adusumilli is ok. While there are few repetitive scenes in the first half, the lengthy emotional scenes in the second half, slowed down the tempo of the narration. Dialogues are powerful and hardhitting at times. Production values are good.
Altogether, Dhandoraa turns out to be a interesting take on caste feelings in the society. Director Murali Kanth drew inspirations from the happenings in the society and penned the story and though the story has predictable elements like honor killing and humanity, he got the optimum from his cast and crew. Aided with their support and few powerful thought provoking dialogues, he managed to turn the film into a decent one. The inclusion of few novel elements, racy screenplay, doing away with repetitions would have added more firepower. Considering all these elements, Cinejosh goes with a 2.5 rating for Dhandoraa.