Film: Dubai Seenu
Rating: 3.25/5
Banner: Universal Media
Cast: Ravi Teja, Nayantara, Shayaji Shinde, Bhanu Chander, Sushant, Supreet, Sunil, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Dharmavarapu, AVS, MS Narayana, Raghu Babu, Krishna Bhagwan, Chitram Sreenu, Sreenivasa Reddy, Gowtham Raju, Telangana Shakuntala, Surekha Vani , JD Chakravarthy etc
Fights: Ram Laxman
Art: AS Prakash
Editing: Varma
Camera: Dharani
Music: Mani Sharma
Producer: DVV Danayya
Director: Sreenu Vaitla
Release Date: 7th June 2007
Story:
The title is Dubai Seenu but Seenu (Ravi Teja) never goes to Dubai in the film. He just bluffs to be 'Dubai returned' for sometime in first half. That's one side of the theme.
Coming to the story, Seenu plans to go Dubai and earn along with his friends. Ramakrishna (Brahmanandam) is one among his friends gang who tries to lead his entire team. After reaching Mumbai, due to the over action of Rama Krishna everybody in the team get deceived by a thief (Venu Madhav) who convinces them as a consultant to send them to Dubai. Then the entire gang settles down at Patnaik (Krishna Bhagawan) by selling Vada-Pav on beach road.
Seenu meets Madhumitha (Nayantara) there. Later she shifts to Hyderabad and joins in Radio Mirchi as RJ. Seenu also comes to Hyderabad in search of her. This is the story till interval that sounds to be normal. It's actually layer no-1 in the film.
On parallel track to this, the narration goes with respect to underworld don Jinnah Bhai (Sushant Singh) who comes to Hyderabad on a mission. Seenu and Jinnah happen to meet face to face. But how? Why? Who is Seenu? That has to be watched on screen.
Performances:
Ravi Teja performed in normal way and there is no novelty in his character, get up or characterization.
Nayantara is sexy with respect to personality. Costumes used on her for songs are also impressive. But she has no charm that sparkled during the days of Chandramukhi.
Presence of CVL as heroine's father recalls us 'Venky'. The action part also holds some similarity with that film.
Brahmanandam's comedy is moderate and there is indeed more scope to use him. Sunil did well in his periphery and spilled laughs. His dance steps in the song 'Once Upon A time..' echo the theaters with claps.
Shayaji Shinde got full length comedy role in the film with villain shades. Earlier Malayalam character artiste Surya used to do such roles. Now Shayaji appears to have taken that stand.
Sushant Singh has debuted on Telugu screen with this film. He is fit as a villain.
Ram-Laxman; fights hold good punch. Varma's editing is also impressive. But Srinu Vaitla has gone little beyond the line in screenplay part.
Seenu playing with Inspector Shayaji Shinde sounds unnatural. We may wonder how a normal guy could threaten a police officer of that stature. (We have to adjust ourselves feeling that it's for masses).
Analysis:
The film runs elastic in first half but enough of humor is spilled here and there. An apparent twist takes place on screen just before the interval. Second half goes with the flash back of Seenu that brings a link with underworld don. Then the action part starts. On a whole the second half goes with action part that dragged a bit longer. But still the effort of Srinu Vaitla to make the film an entertaining product is laudable.
It's Vaitla's film after 'Dhee'. While Dhee is a single layer film with flat narration blended with humor, 'Dubai Seenu' has two layers in it (one is straight and the other is flash back). Vaitla blended comedy in right mix. But the flavor of 'Venky' hasn't gone out.
JD Chakravarthy has a character role in the film that bears no big scope to perform.
The role that scores good marks in the film is that of Soloman Raju of MS Narayana. He really spilled laughs as a senior most hero on Telugu screen. Srinu Vaitla planned that really well without making the film over dosed with action part in climax.
Mani Sharma's music is pale. Cinematography is good.
The fate of this film depends on the patronage of mass audiences. It will have equal response from the audiences of all centers.
Bottom Line: Watch It for Time Pass
(SiraSri can be reached at [email protected])
