Rey Review

Behind the Movie Rey: Film maker YVS Chowdary’s passionate project introducing Sai Dharam Tej suffered many injuries in the journey to release. Finally, the film has hit the screens. Let us see, how far YVS’s shout for success was audible to audience?

In the Movie Rey: Story begins with introduction of Amritha (Saiyami Kher), an upcoming pop artist sets herself a goal to win Best Of the World trophy through a competition to be held in the USA because it was her brother’s last wish. However, there is a big threat to this Trophy with two times winner Jenna (Shraddha Das) eyed for hat trick ably supported by cruel boyfriend (Farhad Shah Nawaz). On her journey to win the trophy, Amritha joins a Jamaican Music College to team up with Rocket aka Rock (Sai Dharam Tej), who is a big flirt. A mischievous and goal less Rock becomes sincere and honest for the sake of Amritha and her love. What kind of hurdles does Jenna create for Rock and Amritha? How Rock rocked the show in final to realize the dream of Amritha is rest.

Values of the Movie Rey: Problem with YVS Chowdary is; he targets audience of lowest centers keeping all the fundamentals to rest troubling the higher order centers. He just loves to create sound pollution with overt heroism and wild display of villainy in lady antagonists. He still struck to the old formulae of 80 and 90s for debut of Mega camp new hero. This time not just the non-connecting story, YVS also had a lame script to execute without any proper direction. Obviously, this led to fragmentation of story into numerous pieces, none of them connected properly. YVS seems to have roamed entire Jamaica and many parts of the USA to justify the backdrop he selected. Every location is new as Gunasekharan’s cinematography spans through all the possible angles throwing the lavishness on our faces. Kotagiri’s editing could have safely avoided at least 20 minutes of the length. Dialogues Raja Simha and Sreedhar Seepana aren’t great although the punch was harsh at instances. Coming to Late Chakri’s music, only couple of songs impressed. Mainly, ‘Golimaar’ re-mix song left haunting. BGM is loud, louder and loudest. Production values of Chowdary’s Bommarillu banner are flawless. 

On performance area, it’s hard to believe that Sai Dharam Tej is debuting. He showed utmost perfection in dialogue delivery, energetic body language, ductile dance movements and astonishing stunts. Especially, he rocked in the climax theme song ran for nearly 9 minutes. Shraddha Das is the next big asset showing the negative shades. OMG, she is damn hot and every costume Shraddha wore drags you into wildest of fantasies. She has just scorched the screen with hot body. 

Before Shraddha, heroine Saiyami Kher could not make any stand just like India cricket team before Australia rampage in semi finals. Saiyami is a good dancer but that isn’t enough to grab the attention as heroine. Farhad Shah Nawaz was ineffective. Among the rest, Naresh, Hema and Yalamanchili Yuktha as Sai’s parents over-acted just like Venu Madhav and Tanikella Bharani. The artist group who has done Sai’s friends is just Ok. Ali’s Baba character and Raghu Babu are non-hilarious. Rest of artists needs no big mention because majority belonged to West Indies.

Out of the Movie Rey: Film has been long delayed for release due to different reasons. After watching this, one can easily understand on why none from Mega family came forward. YVS wasn’t at his best in running the show. Unnecessary pumping of energy with avoidable noise pollution cannot just serve the purpose. There needed enough of depth in content to connect with masses. Purposeless and soulless build up cannot be termed as heroism. Many scenes start and end abruptly. It can be due to uneven editing or legitimate chopping of length to save the audience.

On take-off with Ram’s voice-over, there was a series of interesting episodes revealing the main plot along with introduction to three main characters. From here, YVS scrambles portraying boring and over-playing episodes rolled one by one. Interval block was adrenaline pumping with hero challenging to land in USA. Waiting for second half to settle down, situations won’t change. Except face to face battle between Sai and Shraddha Das, rest strong hammer blows. 3 Intelligents, Golimaar song in pre-climax and lengthy theme song of climax have put a better show before projectors shut down. 

Commercially, ‘Rey’ might do a bit better in B, C and lower order centers compared to top. As audience lost the interest developing negative interest on film due to series of postponements, we need to wait and see how far support of Mega Fans help in recovery of the massive investment!

Cinejosh Verdict of Rey: Loud, Louder, Loudest Shout.

                                           Cinejosh Rating: 2.5/5.0

                                                                         Reviewed by Srivaas