By Yashwanth Aluru
A film director needs to pour his soul completely in his film. But filmmakers like Puri Jagannadh does this sometime and doesn’t do most of the time. This was proved by his previous films “Temper” and “Jyothi Lakshmi”. One was with complete soul and the other was not. This time Puri came up with “Loafer” which has just half of his soul. Starring Varun Tej and Disha Patani as leads, this film was produced by C. Kalyan under his CK Entertainments production house.
Plot:
Raja (Varun Tej) gets separated from his mother Lakshmi (Revathy) by his greedy father Murali (Posani) in his childhood. Grown up to be a thief, Raja falls in love with Parijaatham alias Mouni (Disha Patani). It leads him to find his mother once. The rest plot is all about how he wins his mother’s love and Mouni’s love.
Narration:
The storyline is not a new one. It’s just that Puri came up with a line on mother sentiment after a decade he made “Amma Naanna O Tamil Ammayi”. But I guessed there’s going to be something peculiar about this film if it’s capable of letting “Ram Gopal Varma” shed tears (heard so). Moreover, his film has Varun as the lead, who conveyed his taste in choosing different subjects like “Mukunda” and “Kanche”. All these made me go for “Loafer”.
Anyway, good things should be discussed first for any film...
Puri’s “Loafer” had some good things in him. First place goes to the selection of “Revathy” for mother’s character. Puri’s choice was good in this rather than opting routine mother Jayasudha. Next comes the female lead’s characterization. Generally, Puri tries to create his female leads with a small peculiarity which made most of his female leads unbelievable and unconventional. But this time, he created a sweet character for which he opted beautiful Disha Patani.
A mother is always special though narrated for hundreds of times. One can never try to project it in a wrong way, let it be Varma’s disciple Puri. The places where Raja tries to convey his mother that he is her son with the song “Suvvi Suvvalamma”, the scene where Lakshmi conveys her pain on losing her child, in the terminology of a teacher and the scene where she realizes the truth are the ones that let us not to criticize Puri every time.
Puri also shows his eminence in the male lead’s characterization. Idiot’s Ravi Teja, Pokiri’s Mahesh, Temper’s Tarak, Jyothi Lakshmi’s Charmme and Loafer’s Varun Tej share a common point among themselves, called “body language”. Though Puri delivers an unconventional film like “Heart Attack”, he never comes out of this trend. It’s not a bad thing to criticize but an acceptable one all the time. One best example is the scene where Raja thanks Mouni for letting him meet his mother.
The second half’s narration was racy and let the audience forget the first half’s sluggish narration.
Talking about other things…
Puri narrates anything straightly, either visually or verbally. Sometimes, when watched such things, it breaks the heart. Loafer had one such scene which comes when Mouni explains why she ran out of her house. Maybe, such cases happen in the real world. Maybe, that scene helped the narrator to establish the cruelty of his characters well but at the moment it happened, broke my heart completely. I became one of those who cursed him a lot, on watching it.
Even Puri might have known that his first half is much weaker than the second. To overcome/manage this, he should have concentrated on extracting a good music from “Sunil Kashyap”. All the songs in the first half were very hard for ears to listen though Puri established good frames at some places. Had the songs been good, audience would've easily forgiven the narration. I felt Puri tried to be someone else in the place where Raja fights for farmers in a field. As I kept thinking why Puri tried this, he immediately came back and conveyed that his change was temporary.
So, Loafer is a film which comprises of good, bad and ugly shades and is a one time watch.
Coming to performances, Varun Tej was the show stealer. It’s so good to see him getting improved from film to film. Definitely, he can become a good “actor” if he continues to attempt versatile subjects. Disha Patani was beautiful and came up with a subtle performance. Revathy was apt as Varun’s mother and did complete justice to her character. Her performance was very natural in the second half where she explains the love and pain of a mother towards her child. Posani Krishna Murali was apt as a greedy father but Puri should’ve written a different body language and dialogue delivery like he did in “Temper”. Posani’s shoutout for every dialogue became irritating at a moment. Mukesh Rushi and other antagonists were good for their roles. Brahmanandam, Ali, Saptagiri, Dhanraj and other comedians got limited scope hence they couldn't entertain much.
Eminences:
1) Second Half’s Narration. A well dealt emotion in the second half worked well.
2) Varun Tej. He showcased a great versatility from Kanche to Loafer. He’s the show stealer of this film. He will have a bright future as an actor if he keeps on opting versatile scripts.
3) P. G. Vinda’s Cinematography. All the visuals of the film especially in Jodhpur and songs are rich and colourful.
4) Production Values. Though the film wasn't shot in sets much, producer C. Kalyan’s production values are good.
Lowlands:
1) First half’s Narration. Very sluggish.
2) Sunil Kashyap’s Music. Though background score was alright, songs were not at all good and failed to enlighten the film, except “Suvvi Suvvalamma”.
3) Poor Entertainment from comedians.
A Telugu version of this review can be found here.
A film director needs to pour his soul completely in his film. But filmmakers like Puri Jagannadh does this sometime and doesn’t do most of the time. This was proved by his previous films “Temper” and “Jyothi Lakshmi”. One was with complete soul and the other was not. This time Puri came up with “Loafer” which has just half of his soul. Starring Varun Tej and Disha Patani as leads, this film was produced by C. Kalyan under his CK Entertainments production house.
Plot:
Raja (Varun Tej) gets separated from his mother Lakshmi (Revathy) by his greedy father Murali (Posani) in his childhood. Grown up to be a thief, Raja falls in love with Parijaatham alias Mouni (Disha Patani). It leads him to find his mother once. The rest plot is all about how he wins his mother’s love and Mouni’s love.
Narration:
The storyline is not a new one. It’s just that Puri came up with a line on mother sentiment after a decade he made “Amma Naanna O Tamil Ammayi”. But I guessed there’s going to be something peculiar about this film if it’s capable of letting “Ram Gopal Varma” shed tears (heard so). Moreover, his film has Varun as the lead, who conveyed his taste in choosing different subjects like “Mukunda” and “Kanche”. All these made me go for “Loafer”.
Anyway, good things should be discussed first for any film...
Puri’s “Loafer” had some good things in him. First place goes to the selection of “Revathy” for mother’s character. Puri’s choice was good in this rather than opting routine mother Jayasudha. Next comes the female lead’s characterization. Generally, Puri tries to create his female leads with a small peculiarity which made most of his female leads unbelievable and unconventional. But this time, he created a sweet character for which he opted beautiful Disha Patani.
A mother is always special though narrated for hundreds of times. One can never try to project it in a wrong way, let it be Varma’s disciple Puri. The places where Raja tries to convey his mother that he is her son with the song “Suvvi Suvvalamma”, the scene where Lakshmi conveys her pain on losing her child, in the terminology of a teacher and the scene where she realizes the truth are the ones that let us not to criticize Puri every time.
Puri also shows his eminence in the male lead’s characterization. Idiot’s Ravi Teja, Pokiri’s Mahesh, Temper’s Tarak, Jyothi Lakshmi’s Charmme and Loafer’s Varun Tej share a common point among themselves, called “body language”. Though Puri delivers an unconventional film like “Heart Attack”, he never comes out of this trend. It’s not a bad thing to criticize but an acceptable one all the time. One best example is the scene where Raja thanks Mouni for letting him meet his mother.
The second half’s narration was racy and let the audience forget the first half’s sluggish narration.
Talking about other things…
Puri narrates anything straightly, either visually or verbally. Sometimes, when watched such things, it breaks the heart. Loafer had one such scene which comes when Mouni explains why she ran out of her house. Maybe, such cases happen in the real world. Maybe, that scene helped the narrator to establish the cruelty of his characters well but at the moment it happened, broke my heart completely. I became one of those who cursed him a lot, on watching it.
Even Puri might have known that his first half is much weaker than the second. To overcome/manage this, he should have concentrated on extracting a good music from “Sunil Kashyap”. All the songs in the first half were very hard for ears to listen though Puri established good frames at some places. Had the songs been good, audience would've easily forgiven the narration. I felt Puri tried to be someone else in the place where Raja fights for farmers in a field. As I kept thinking why Puri tried this, he immediately came back and conveyed that his change was temporary.
So, Loafer is a film which comprises of good, bad and ugly shades and is a one time watch.
Coming to performances, Varun Tej was the show stealer. It’s so good to see him getting improved from film to film. Definitely, he can become a good “actor” if he continues to attempt versatile subjects. Disha Patani was beautiful and came up with a subtle performance. Revathy was apt as Varun’s mother and did complete justice to her character. Her performance was very natural in the second half where she explains the love and pain of a mother towards her child. Posani Krishna Murali was apt as a greedy father but Puri should’ve written a different body language and dialogue delivery like he did in “Temper”. Posani’s shoutout for every dialogue became irritating at a moment. Mukesh Rushi and other antagonists were good for their roles. Brahmanandam, Ali, Saptagiri, Dhanraj and other comedians got limited scope hence they couldn't entertain much.
Eminences:
1) Second Half’s Narration. A well dealt emotion in the second half worked well.
2) Varun Tej. He showcased a great versatility from Kanche to Loafer. He’s the show stealer of this film. He will have a bright future as an actor if he keeps on opting versatile scripts.
3) P. G. Vinda’s Cinematography. All the visuals of the film especially in Jodhpur and songs are rich and colourful.
4) Production Values. Though the film wasn't shot in sets much, producer C. Kalyan’s production values are good.
Lowlands:
1) First half’s Narration. Very sluggish.
2) Sunil Kashyap’s Music. Though background score was alright, songs were not at all good and failed to enlighten the film, except “Suvvi Suvvalamma”.
3) Poor Entertainment from comedians.
A Telugu version of this review can be found here.