27 December 2013
Hyderabad
The heist genre is not a very common ventured domain in the Telugu films. RGV in his prime wrote one of the best screenplays ever in the history of TFI in the form of Kshana Kshanam way back during 1991/92. He followed up with another gig involving a crime comedy genre for Anagana Oka Roju. We have also had well made films like Aithe and more recently Swamy Ra ra. The success and acclaim of these movies revolves around a good screenplay encompassing thrill, action, comedy and suspense elements.
What makes D for Dopidi different? Although this belongs to the heist genre, it runs entirely on dialog based comedy, and entertainment quotient from first frame to the last. The movie is about 4 individuals who decide to rob a bank and the repercussions they face once they begin to execute, all told in a very entertaining manner.
First things first: this is a director’s movie. The debutant director, Siraj Kalla comes up with an excellent work. Dialogs and an entertaining screenplay are the film’s forte. You end up laughing for close to 90% of the dialogs/scenes which is a surprise element for a movie involving bank robbery as the main thread.
Not much time is wasted on the establishment of lead characters and planning the robbery. Character introduction and conclusion by Nani is very entertaining. The movie duration is 2 hours and by interval, the police have already surrounded the bank. The entire second half revolves around negotiation procedures between the lead characters and police and media’s involvement. The second half lags briefly but picks up momentum as the story progresses. The satire of media covering the bank robbery is awesome.
All the lead actors: Varun Sandesh, Sundeep Kishan, Naveen and Rakesh have all done their roles well. Senior actor Tanikella Bharani and director Deva Katta shine in their roles. The flashback thread of Tanikella narrated by his henchmen to the lead characters is hilarious. Ramaraju and Fish Venkat (Australia visa) threads are comical. The director has also shown his subtlety in romance through an episode. I loved the scene where one of the hostages requests the captors to allow him to talk to his girlfriend and propose his love on her birthday. Although, he does not say “I love you”, he expresses his love to his sweet heart who also accepts the proposal by saying that she will wait for him. Overwhelmed with happiness, the hostage embraces his captor (Varun Sandesh) who encourages him to express his love.
Fortunately the director has not included any songs except for a background song. Editing and Cinematography deserve a special mention. The lighting sequence used for village episodes (sunrise and sunset shots) is realistic. The production values are appropriate for the movie plot.
My hearty congratulations to the debutant director Siraj Kalla and the producers for coming up with an entertaining movie. I am very surprised at the relatively low ratings this movie has garnered from various websites. I wish and hope that this movie receives good mouth publicity and garners a good commercial success and critical acclaim it truly and rightfully deserves for its entertaining content, excellent direction and good performances by all the actors.
Sreekanth Devarakonda
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