Kalicharan Movie Review

Behind the Movie Kalicharan: Young hero Chaitanya yet to prove in film industry is teamed with ‘Gayam 2’ director Sri Prawin for this movie being made on some true incidents. Let us see, how far this works?

In the Movie Kalicharan: Set in 1980 backdrop in a small village of Nalgonda district, story is about Tahasildar (Nagineedu)’s son Kalicharan (Chaitanya) and his revenge on local goon Pasupathi (Pankaj Kesari). Actually, Pasupathi has an opponent in Kodali Prabhakar (Rao Ramesh) and both of them eye on local MLA seat. At the same time, Kalicharan kills brother-in-law of Pasupathi only to get arrested by the police. But, Prabhakar rescues Kali grooming him into his right hand. The twists in story arrive when Kali’s mother and father are murdered in a car blast while his sister is also brutally raped in flashback. Kali is on a revenge to complete Pasupathi. Why did Kali end up even in finishing Prabhakar? What happened to Kali’s love and married life with Teertha (Chandini)? All these form the rest.

Values & Out of the Movie Kalicharan: Highly inspired from Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap’s making style (Gangs of Wasseypur), our Sri Prawin took to a rugged storyline with some true happenings in and around 1980 in Mahabubnagar District. However, Prawin missed bringing the much needed nativity into the film. The dead slow narration and slanted execution made it into a boring tale. Satish Muthyala and Vishwa Devabattula’s cinematography was good in parts; they still could not add the Telugu flavor. Prawin Pudi’s editing missed in sharpness. Nandan Raj’s background score elevated the essence in few scenes and all the songs were sounding analogous. Venkat Nag’s fight composition was too bad and especially climax resembled that of Vikram’s ‘Siva Putrudu.’ Production values of Karunalayam, Sri Prawin Cinema are appreciable. 

Performance wise Chaitanya was completely in non-sync. His character fits odd neither into pure Telangana base nor Coastal base. When characters of Rao Ramesh, Nagineedu and others try to add Telangana accent, Chaitanya struck to Coastal language. A director should have minimal command on the slang to be used in conversations with respect to the backdrop picked. Chandini is cute looking as Brahmin girl but comes at uneven times to disturb the flow of action. I opine that, there was no necessity for Sri Prawin to narrate the story in flashback format because a technically better shot second half if shifted to first half would have added the saving grace. Bhojpuri actor Pankaj Kesari was good looks wise but his character was poorly etched most of the time rolling on bed with sexually wild natured wife.  Rao Ramesh is a true performer and his caliber is completely wasted with a silly twist in climax. Nagineedu was regular and the girl who acted as his daughter did a good job.

Commercially, a project of this genre can do partially good in Tollywood only if director can add that conviction utilizing the strong topographical edge to the rugged script.  The thought of Sri Prawin to follow Anurag Kashyap was acceptable. At the same time, he should have given the proper attention on the kind of screenplay and story flow maintained by him in both the parts of ‘Gangs of Wasseypur.’ Definitely, there is a lot missing herein every department. Finally, ‘Kalicharan’ is a good attempt which has totally gone wrong.

Cinejosh Verdict of Kalicharan: This is a Kaali (Empty) Film.

                                                         Cinejosh Rating: 2/5

                                                                                               Reviewed by Srivaas