Dookudu (2011)

My first Telugu movie and I chose to see it for Mahesh Babu alone. I was impressed by his style and the hype that he has among Telugu movie watchers. Superstar Mahesh as the title proudly proclaims and I must say this man has amazing screen presence, solid dialog delivery, decent dancing skills, good emotive skills and above all he is a superstar without a shade of a doubt.

In Dookudu he is a cop (Ajay) and while he is not busy plotting the baddies' downfall as an undercover cop, he takes care of his father (Shankar Narayana) who has just recovered from a coma. At some other times, he woos the girl he covets. There are adequate doses of drama and staged comedy. The main plot diverts quite often. When the baddies are the very same people who were responsible for backstabbing his father, it becomes more convenient for our hero. He uses brawn, lots of staged comic drama and of course some pure star power to overthrow the baddies led by Nayak.

There are some nice songs by Thaman. The movie is pretty long at close to 3 hours but Mahesh Babu holds the movie together. There is no crass comedy or skin show. It is a pretty decent movie for commercial standards. But, the action scenes are absurd. They have taken too much cinematic liberty.

Sonu Sood plays the typical Indian commercial movie villain. There are other villains too like Sayaji Shinde. Brahmanandam tries to make us laugh with his trademark style. Prakash Raj has a larger than life 'messiah' like role

On the whole, a wholesome treat for Mahesh Babu fans as we get to see him as a mass hero, a police officer, a politician, the entertainer etc. all in one movie. His punch dialogs were a rage, thanks to the subtitles, I was able to enjoy them as much as a Telugu speaking watcher.

VERDICT: Proper masala entertainer. Mahesh Babu carries the movie to the winning post. 

Vishnuvardhana (2011)

Vishnu is the son of a local laundry vendor but, he wants to make it big. He is a big fan of superstar Vishnuvardhan. On an occasion, he loots the cell phone of a big Bangalore don named Adisesha. He uses that phone, answers all the incoming calls and gets some easy extortion money.

He also poses as a doctor to get his dream girl Bharathi. Later he also has to deal with Adisesha's good-natured, sexy wife who wants her evil and immoral husband dead.

Adisesha uses a corrupt policeman (and partner in crime) to nab the guy who has his phone. Adi also gets a job to kill the guy who is posing as a doctor to woo Bharathi. Vishnu meanwhile enters Adi's own circle and literally plays around with him. Adi comes to know in the end that it is Vishnu who is the man in question in both scenarios. Finally, the hero succeeds as expected and banishes Adi and the corrupt policeman.

Hits

• Sudeep's comic sense is very likable and his dialog delivery style is similar to superstar Rajinikanth's. The guy is tall, elegant and definite star material
• Bhavana and Priyamani are pure eye candies with the latter having some scope for performance in the 2nd half. Sonu Sood makes his debut in Kannada and he looks mean
• The comedians appeal majorly to the local crowd. 
• The songs are all foot-tapping with the opening number the pick of the lot. 
• Every time Vishnuvardhan's name or image is on screen, the crowd literally goes wild in celebration
• Quite an intelligent and entertaining screenplay. 

Misses

• The scene where the hero saves the baby and the pregnant mother is funny. 

VERDICT

A sure-shot hit with tremendous title value and an interesting premise.