Starring: Gopichand, Bhavana, Ashish Vidyarthi, Sunil and others
Direction: Ramana
Music: Manisarma
Release date: 14/02/2008
Director Ramana gives a god account of himself with his debut film. The film offers everything, love, drama, family sentiment, comedy and action. However, the violence is in a slightly higher dose.
Story:
Gopichand is the youngest of the three sons of Parachuri Venkateswara Rao. Theirs is a big and happy family. Gopichand’s elder brothers are happily married. They all live together. Parachuri runs a big textile showroom in Visakhapatnam. Gopichand also has a close friend in Sunil and Rajiv Kanakala. Kanakala is an MLA.
Gopichand meets Bujji (Bhavana) and falls for her. He poses as a CBI officer and meets Bhavana everyday at the beach in the name of interrogation. The reason is that Bhavana had run away with 15,000 rupees form Gopichnd’s brother Naresh after he withdraws money from an ATM. She later returns the amount shortly saying that she needed the money urgently as a girl was hospitalized.
Bhavana is studying in college and stays in a women’s hostel. She is an orphan.
Bhavan also becomes close to Gopichand ‘s family members. His engagement is arranged at Annavaram.
At this juncture, the villains enter the scene and kidnap Bhavana. Ashsih Vidyarthi is angry with Gopichand, as he has beaten up his younger brother when he was teasing Bhavana.
The villains beat Gopichand black and blue and also rape Bhavana. She later jumps to her death. But Gopichand is still in a hallucination. He thinks that Bhavana is still with him He behaves as if she is with him always. The rest of the story is how Gopichand takes revenge on the villains as well as Kanakala who has backstabbed Gopichand and his family for becoming a minister.
Performance:
Gopichand excels both as a lover boy as well as a wronged angry young man, who has been wronged by the villains. He gets to show his muscles in a couple of scenes. Gopichand also bashes up quite a number goons in his usual trademark style.
Bhavana is quite good and refreshing. She is good looking both in traditional as wll as western wear. She also does full justice to he role. Parachuri, Naresh, Sayaji Shinde, Ashsih Vidyarthi, Raghu Babu and others are adequate in their roles.
Music by Mani Sarma is also good. A couple of songs are set to some fast beats while tow aongs are slow maving filems only the hero and heroine. Comedy is also okay. The AYM scene, the scene where Gopichand catches conjunctivitis from Bhavana and it turn passes it on to his family members is also funny.
The audience also enjoys a scene where Gopichand switches on the programme ‘Neralu Ghoralu’ on TV to tease Bhavana. Ali also raises some laughs with his appearance mimicking Rajnikanth in Sivaji.
Sunil and Ali also talk about Chiranjeevi and his role in Shankar Dada Zindabad. Raghu Babu’s dialogue to Ashish Vidyarthi – “Pilichi Pindam Pettinchukovadam ante ide†also evokes laughter.
Final Note:
The film once again reinforces Gopichand as a mass hero. This is surely another good movie to gopichand.The title is apt as “Ontari” because Gopichand alone makes the movie worth watching.The excessive dose of violence may not go well with the family audiences. But for the mass audience and youth, ‘Ontari’ is definitely a paisa vasool film.
Bhavana is facing a major career crisis in Kollywood. Her last four releases - Deepavali, Arya, Rameswaram, Vazthukkal had her playing the “poor little rich girl” who is a bit arrogant in the first few reels but melts for the “goodness in hero character” in the second half!