Money Money More Money - Damp Squib

		Release date: 26 August 2011
		123Telugu.com Rating : 2.5/5
		Director : J D Chakravarthy
		Producer : K Satyanarayana
		Music Director :Chakri
		Starring: J D Chakravarthy , Bramanandam, Gajala, Shashank , Tara Alisha , Asha Saini

J.D. Chakravarthy, Brahmanandam and Brahmaji team up to revive the iconic 'Money' franchise. This movie is titled 'Money Money More Money' so let us see if it can bring more laughs than the original cult comedies 'Money' and 'Money Money'.

Story : The movie is a remake of the Hindi film 'Darwaja Bandh Rakho', a film directed by J.D. Chakravarthy himself. That Hindi movie itself was a remake of a Korean drama "Attack the gas station". The story revolves around four unemployed youths (J.D.Chakravarthy, Brahmaji, Kevin Dev and Mukul Dev) who face severe monetary difficulties. After having had enough, they decide to kidnap a rich man's daughter to make a quick buck.

They select Maggie(Tara Alisha), the daughter of a rich builder Jagadeesh, and abduct her. They barge into the house of Khan Dada (Brahmanandam), who is a real estate magnate in business difficulties. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the kidnapping goes haywire and the gang is forced to hold out for a while to receive the money.

Trisha the sales girl (Gajala), Sankara Bharanam the pizza guy (Venu Madhav), a police constable (Rajiv Kanakala), financier Shetty (Jeeva) and a few others who make routine visits to Khan Dada's house are also taken hostage to prevent the news of the kidnap from leaking out. The rest of the story is about how the gang of four kidnappers manage the proceedings and whether they earn the money from Maggie's dad.

What is good : The movie will draw decent openings because of the lineage it belongs to. The films 'Money' and 'Money Money' still enjoy considerable following in Andhra Pradesh for their iconic characters and screenplay.Brahmanandam's Khan Dada is almost a cult figure.

Some flashes of good comedy in between and towards the climax bring much needed relief. J.D. Chakravarthy and Brahmaji turn in a decent performance and Gajala looks good on screen. The short screen romance between Gajala and Brahmaji is nice.Venu Madhav tries extremely hard and manages to bring a few laughs. Kevin Dev's histrionics are good.

Special appearances by Nagababu, Chakravarthi, Chandra Mohan and Shashank break the monotony and Shashank's bit before the interval is a nice surprise.

What is bad : This movie has no relation whatsoever either in content or in style to the movies after which it is named. Only the names of the characters Khan Dada and Chakri are taken from the franchise. This is a totally different story.

The storyline is wafer thin and so the onus is on the comedy department to keep the proceedings lively. Sadly, they fail miserably. As I said earlier, there are a few flashes of good comedy, but they are few and far between.

Fans of the Khan Dada character will be hurt big time. This is a very different Khan Dada. Perhaps, J.D. Chakravarthy should have stayed away from naming Brahmanandam's character that way. It is an insult to the work done by Siva Nageswara Rao and Brahmanandam in 1993 and 1995. Brahmanandam looks silly and is a big let down.

Brahmaji is a master at bringing about laughter with his understated comedy timing and Chakravarthy should have utilized him better.

Tara Alisha's performance is atrocious and she is a major handicap for the film. Most of the time, there is zero co-ordination between her mouth and the dubbing. Rama Prabha's attempts at comedy through her broken english sound feeble. Mukul Dev's expressions are wooden. Asha Sanini aka Mayuri is wasted and so is Jeeva. Tamil comedian Senthil should have stayed away from this silly character.

The less said about the illogical climax, the better it is for all of us.

Technical Departments: Screenplay is a big let down. So are the dialogues. A tighter screenplay and wittier dialogues would have done wonders for this movie. Background score by Chakri is nothing to write home about and scores from earlier Telugu films are used liberally in the narrative. Cinematography keeps wavering from interesting to shoddy throughout the film.

Editing is average and production values are just about ok.

Analysis : J.D. should have stayed away from naming this movie after the 'Money' franchise. Neither the characters nor the style of narrative justify this decision. The audience will come in with a lot of expectations because of that name and they will be very disappointed. Perhaps, if the name was different and if the movie was promoted as a regular film, things would not have been so bad.

The movie was a failure in Hindi and it is easy to see why. What should have been a witty and fun movie turns out into buffoonery and is a stale offering. A few scenes in the climax show flashes of genuinely good humour and that hints at what a nice offering this could have been.

If you are going to watch it only because you are a fan of Khan Dada and 'Money', be forewarned. You will be disappointed. Watch it only if you have nothing else to do and if you have seen all the other Box Office offerings.

- Mahesh K.S