Darling Review -3/5

Rating: 3/5
Cast: Prabhas, Kajal, Shradhdha Das, Mukesh Rishi, Prabhu, Chandra Mhan, Ahuti Prasad, MS Narayana, Sivannarayana, Tulasi, Kota, Srinivas Reddy etc.
Music: GV Prakash
Fights: Peter Heins
Dialogues: Swamy
Producer: BVSN Prasad
Direction: Karunakar
Release Date: 23rd Apr 2010

‘Darling’ is the word that Prabhas uses to call his close pals. That was made a title now for the movie with him in lead. Let us see how darling it is for audiences.

Story:
The movie starts with enthusiastic 1980 backdrop in black and white. The college mates disperse after farewell and they keep themselves in contact even after decades.

Prabha (Prabhas) is the son of one of those old friends (Prabhu) and Nandini (Kajal) is the daughter of another (Ahuti Prasad). They live in various places.

A lady (Shradhdha Das) loves Prabha and proposes him. But he negates. The father of that lady is a goon (Mukesh Rishi) who surrounds Prabha and his friends’ gang for negating his daughter. To escape from that goon Prabha narrates his flash back stating that he has love interest by name Nandini and he met her in Switzerland. The goon leaves him knowing that.

After a while, the old friends wish to have old friends’ reunion with families. They all meet in a village and how Prabha and Nandini meet again (?) and end up with love-union forms rest of the story. Many twists, turns and secrets will be unleashed in narration for the entertainment of audience.

Performances:
Prabhas is at his best. His gait, his glow, his performance and confidence carried the movie happily.

Kajal enticed audiences with her magnetism. Shradhdha Das, although had small role, she made her presence felt.

Mukesh Rishi is ok as goon but he has lighter vein characterization.

Chandramohan, Ahuti Prasad, Prabhu, Tulasi, MS Narayana are all ok.

Sivannarayana performs comedy up to the perfection with his single dialogue ‘tinnaaaraa..!!??”. Kota has no dialogue at all in the film.

Music is bad. Background score is poor. If those were good, the movie would have scored well among audience. It is single line story but narrated in three layers. It’s all screenplay technique that which may be liked by many.

Analysis:
Watching this movie is not like eating an apple or banana but like chewing an orange. You need to spit the seeds and enjoy the rest. It surely entertains but lacks in consistency. It’s good in bits and pieces but cannot be declared ‘wholesome wonder’. The major asset for this movie is Prabhas who handled the audience with his great looks and confident performance. Female audiences definitely feel ectopic tintinnabulations in their heart. Action part, generally finds it difficult to get encomiums. But Peter Heins stood as top entertainer in this movie with his wonderful composition of fights.

The best parts of the movie are:
Prabhas
Peter Hein’s fight compositions
‘Kadupu Manta’ scene between Prabhas and Srinivas Reddy
Inka Edo song picturization
Watching Hyderabad with Switzerland snowfall

The director has rightly used the technical elements to make the movie a pleasant feel to watch. The entire movie has got elevated in picture quality due to DI and other effects. Technically on a whole, with editing, cinematography and CG stands great. But the main factor of the movie, the music, is unpleasant. RR is also very weak and failed to bring in right elevation for narration.

First half is entertaining but declares to be a fiction by interval (watch it to get clarity). Second half is on beaten track with predictable screenplay. Climax is crisp and closed on lighter note without any extraaaas.

The film has got the muscle to run in theatres for some time with summer factor and bits and pieces of entertainment.

Bottom Line: Watch it without big expectations. It will not disappoint you.