Godari Gattupaina, presented by Asian Cinemas, was released in theatres today. Let's find out what the film is like.
Plot:
The story is set in a small Godavari village where Raju (Sumanth Prabhas) is an auto driver. It's love at first sight for him when Maya (Nidhi Pradeep) lands a tight slap on him in the middle of a road. Maya's father, Shyam Babu (Jagapathi Babu), is a security guard who intends the best for his daughter. Will he approve of his daughter's love for an uneducated auto driver?
Post-Mortem:
In Godari Gattupaina, the only reason Maya starts developing feelings for Raju is that he touched her - by accidentally landing a tight slap. The slap was so hard that she had to buy an Allopathic ointment, as an Ayurvedic ointment wouldn't do it. From that auspicious day onwards, an otherwise straight-walking Maya competes with Raju in an unapologetic race to the bottom of IQ.
Raju's qualifications are many. He energetically participates in pointless auto races, plays low-end betting matches with unemployables, and spends a feel-good time with his adorable family on the very night he was arrested and beaten up by the police. Usually, no matter how useless our male leads are otherwise, their behaviour with the heroine can be interpreted as this or that. In this film, the script never lets Raju reveal his emotions. Does he understand Maya's hints, which should be so obvious even to a child? What does he think of being spoken to in a harsh language by her? In one scene, Maya walks out on him abruptly. In the next, he is talking with his friends (played by Nellore Sudarshan and others) with a relaxed or unserious expression on his face. His 'maradalu' (named Maha Lakshmi, because why waste brain cells on coming up with any other name?) is cute, naive and subconsciously believes that one needn't marry such a noble person to be liberated in life - it's enough to have a platonic relationship for one's life to be fulfilled.
The Raju-Maya love affair is peppered with never-seen-before moments involving their friends, who get to do more talking about them than they get to with each other. Nellore Sudarshan's character is almost the protagonist in the first 20 minutes; his character has more inner life (by this movie's standards) than Raju.
Jagapathi Babu's entire existence revolves around telling his daughter that he loves her. Even in her absence, he is talking/thinking about her. He was supposed to look vulnerable as someone from a lower-middle-class family. Instead, in the one scene where he interacts with the male lead, he looks as though he just walked out of an election campaign trail.
Naga Vamshi's background score is incredibly loud for a love story. The songs are subpar, with the initial ones out of sync with the mood the film intends to create. Director Subhash Chandra's treatment is preposterously outdated.
Closing Remarks:
From a nonsensical romance triggered by juvenile slaps to a protagonist who possesses the emotional depth of a cardboard cutout, the film fails to offer a single compelling reason to watch.
