Movie: Autonagar Surya
Rating: 2.75/5
Cast: Naga Chaitanya , Samantha , Ajay , Jaya Prakash Reddy and others
Directed by : Deva Katta
Produced by : K Atchi Reddy
Banner :RR Movie Makers, Max India Productions
Music by : Anup Rubens
Release Date : 2014-06-27
After going through various struggles and obstacles throughout the production stage, Autonagar Surya has finally seen light today. Expectations are riding on this film as Deva Katta has proved his mettle with his previous film Prasthanam and the trailers of the film looked promising. Did Autonagar Surya live up to the expectations or not?
What is it about?
Surya (Naga Chaitanya) is brought up on the streets of Autonagar after his parents gets killed by goons. At the age of fifteen Surya kills a rowdy and goes to jail. He gets graduated in the prison and plans to settle down by starting his own garage in Autonagar. But Indra (Jayaprakash Reddy), the local dada never lets Surya to fulfill his dreams.
Performance:
Naga Chaitanya: This is a challenging role for Naga Chaitanya who has done mostly romantic characters in his career so far. He did well and carried the film upon his shoulders. However one gets a feeling that Chaitanya should wait for few more years before taking up larger than life characters. He is too cute and looked so young to be a mass leader.
Samantha: Samantha has limited role in this film and she did her bit. Her on screen chemistry with Chaitanya is impressive.
Others: Sai Kumar got a meaty role, but it is not something special like he did in Prasthanam. TV actor Madhu played the villain character and he is good. Jayaprakash Reddy and Ajay are usual. Actors who did the characters of hero friends also did a good job. Brahmanandam is wasted and Raghubabu is very loud.
Technicalities:
Music: Music by Anup is passable. A couple of songs are good on screen. Background score is good most of the scenes.
Direction: Deva Katta excelled as dialogue writer. There are so many philosophical and thought provoking lines in the film. He chose a very stale subject and couldn't do much in presenting it in a novel way. He handled few scenes very well and did a mediocre job in dealing with certain scenes.
Others: Cinematography is good and maintains the intense mood throughout the film. Editing could have been better. The film drags on and on at times. There are so many lengthy scenes in the film. Production values are good.
Thumbs Up:
Dialogues
Naga Chaitanya performance
Thumbs Down:
Violent second half
Cliched story line
Weak narration
Analysis:
Deva Katta tries to set a mood with the starting scenes itself. We get a clear picture that this film is going to be intense emotional drama after watching initial scenes. Although director had intentions to make a powerful film about the corrupted system, he fails to connect the dots. The film's graph goes up and down with few scenes working and a few not.
Deva Katta chose the 90's backdrop for this film as Rowdyism was very common in those days. He did his best to bring out the retro look by using the posters and cars of 90s. He focused more on preaching morals than content and that has turned out to be the biggest weak link for this film. Dialogues despite being impressive were tad lengthy and each scene takes an eternity to end.
First half has some good moments that will raise hopes over the second half. But the second half failed to live up with action taking the front seat. Mood of the film turns very serious and there is little scope left for other elements. Chaitanya and Samantha's love track goes missing in the second hour. Forced comedy doesn't help the movie much. They could simply chop off Brahmanandam's scenes which are sheer waste of time.
Autonagar Surya doesn't have many positives and it may find it tough to win at the box office. Anyone would have expected a better product from Deva Katta after seeing Prasthanam. Sadly Autonagar Surya is not at least half of it.
Verdict: Autonagar Surya first is good Second half is bit boring over all one time watch movie