Vishnu, Taapsee starrer Vasthaadu Naa Raju is yet another film which dabbles with romance, family drama and action. Directed by Hemanth Madhukar, Vasthaadu Naa Raju is about a kickboxer who is threatened by a rowdysheeter every now and then. Only problem is he doesn’t seem to understand why for a very long time.

What’s the story : Vishnu stars as Venky whose ambition is win a kickboxing championship. He wanders aimlessly, at least that’s what his father (Thanikella Bharani) thinks. One day, his family finds a picture of Pooja (Taapsee) in his pocket and concludes that maybe the two are in love. They bump into her on couple of occasions and leave her amused. Meanwhile, Pooja’s brother Narasimha (Prakash Raj) harbours political ambitions and as a trade off agrees to a marriage involving his sister and Home Minister’s (Sayaji Shinde) son (Ajay). When Narasimha suspects that Pooja might be involved in a relationship with Venky, he creates problems for his family and often threatens him to back off. Only problem is, Venky doesn’t know why he’s doing that and who Pooja is. How this issue spirals into a huge problem for Venky & his family and how he solves it forms the rest of the story.

What is Good : Love stories have been done to death especially in terms of the chronology of events. We know that mostly such stories tend to have a happy ending, so the only differentiating factor is the journey towards that end. Director Hemanth Madhukar who also wrote the story of Vasthaadu Naa Raju takes a different route and instead of a boy-meets-girl-and-problems sequence, the film puts forth the problem first before love happens. It’s perhaps the only differentiating factor of the film and helps in the narration. Vishnu has undergone a massive transformation since his previous film, Saleem. Right from his looks, costumes, dialogues and more importantly how much he restrains himself from going overboard is quite visible on screen. He does well in the action sequences and his confrontation scenes with Prakash Raj are the best in the film. Although he doesn’t do anything extra-ordinary in the film, his understanding of his role is noteworthy and he doesn’t do anything silly till the end of the film. Taapsee has an interesting role in the film. In the beginning, she often finds herself in awkward situations especially when she bumps into Vishnu’s family in the film and later she empathizes with Venky before falling in love with him. It’s Prakash Raj who dazzles the most in his film. Although it’s a tailor made role for him, the amount of flamboyance and villainy he emotes for most part of the film is a delight to watch, like always. Brahmanandam is good in his role and his flashback scenes make an interesting watch. Sayaji Shinde, Satya Krishna, Ajay, Satyam Rajesh, Siva Reddy and others make their presence felt.

What is bad: Although there’s nothing particularly bad about the film, the placement of songs is a little awkward. At times, the songs hamper the mood of the film and the fact that there’s hardly any lead up to some of the songs makes them look forced upon. Towards the second half of the film, it becomes quite predictable after a decent start.

Technical Departments : S Gopal Reddy’s cinematography is good. The focus is on story for most part instead of enhancing someone’s glamour or bravado. The film has been shot using RED cameras and the final output is quite pleasant on the eyes. Mani Sharma’s music hits the right chords. Gowtham Raju’s editing is neat. It’s a fine film for Hemanth Madhukar who’s making his debut as a director. The conflict between the Vishnu and Prakash Raj is established quite early. There’s nothing wrong in ending the film on a predictable note, perhaps few more twists in the end would have complimented the good work in the beginning.

Bottomline : Vasthaadu Naa Raju is a decent entertainer which traverses through love, action, sentiment and comedy. It’s predictable for most part but then a good effort on the whole. The biggest achievement of this film is that it ends the nightmare of ‘Saleem’. Hope the wisdom prevails in near future too.