"parugu" review

This is the second film for director Bhaskar, who earlier delivered critically acclaimed and commercially superduper film Bommarillu. It is tough to say if Bhaskar did overcome the second film sentiment (this is prevelant in the industry that, usually, the second film of a director would not do well). The storyline is thin and the screenplay of the film seems stretched. The film revolves around a father looking for eloped daughter and it feels that there is too much of search. And finally, audience (especially Chiru fans) might correlate some (or alot) of the scenes with Chiru's second daughter Srija's episode. Chances are that the film might get along well for the lady and family audience. Going into the story, Parugu is about a father and his two daugthers. Neelakantam (Prakashraj) has two daugthers Subbalaxmi (Poonam Bajwa) and Meena (Sheela). Neelakantam is a highly respected person in his place. Neelakantam loves his daugthers more than anything on this earth. His first daughter elopes after her marriage is fixed with someone else. Neelakantam strongly believes that his daughter can never do it and it should be only the guy who might have mislead her. So the search is on for Subbalaxmi. In that context, Neelakantam brings all the friends of the eloped guy to his place. That is how the hero of the film Krishna (Allu Arjun) lands up at Neelakantam's place along with his friends (Srinivasa Reddy, Sunil, Chitram Srinu and two more). Little does Neelakantam know at that time that Krishna is the mastermind who planned the elopement. Krishna plans to run away but promptly falls in love with Meena and returns back. Meena, who knows the agony her father went through due to Subbalaxmi, is very strong on the stand that she would not fall in love. Did Neelakantam finally find Subbalaxmi? Was Krishna able to convince Neelakantam and Subbalaxmi on his love? That has to be seen on the screen. Allu Arjun is at ease in his role as Krishna. His dances are natural but did not have the energy that was seen in Desamuduru. He exceled in the emotional scenes towards the climax. Prakashraj, as the father of two daugthers, did his role good. Well! It is just yet another role for Prakashraj. There isnt anything special about it. Sheela is very impressive in the role of Meena. As an innocent girl in the first half and as a girl who is sandwiched between her father and her love in the second half, Sheela did the roles convincingly. Poonam Bajwa's role is short and she did it good. Jayasudha is unnatural in few scenes. She played the mother of Allu Arjun. Rest of the cast is content in their roles. The expectations are high on this film coming from the director of Bommarillu. In fact, the very points that paved the success way to Bommarillu lacked in this one. Bhaskar, who proved his screenplay expertise in Bommarillu, could not repeat his magic with screenplay here. Even though some of the scenes like Allu Arjun, Sheela scene after he saves her from the rowdies and Prakashraj's drunk dialogs on his daugther show the brand of Bhaskar. Such scenes came out excellent. Overall film feels dragged. This is felt both in the first half and the second half. Neelakantam searching for his daughter at different places feels boring after a while. Dialogs penned by Ravi are good. Music by Mani Sharma is interesting. He might have been in a conflicting cornor where the hero is energetic and good dancer while the situations required kind of soft. Lyrical value in the songs is good. Cinematography is okay. Overall, Parugu could have come out better with some editing in the first half and better screenplay. The film feels dragged with lot of searching for Neelakantam's daughter. The run of the film depends on how the family and lady audience receives it. And also there are several star studded films are in line for release.