Body Guard Review: Old wine in new bottle 2.25/5

	Rating: 2.25/5.0 Banner: Sri Sai Ganesh Productions (p) Ltd Producer(s): Bellamkonda Suresh Director: Gopichand Malineni Music: S S Thaman Casting: Venatesh, Trisha, Saloni, Ali, Prakash Raj, Venu Madhav, Subba Raju, Kota, Dharmavarapu, Pragathi etc
a
Story
It's a festive season in Andhra Pradesh and time for big movie releases. Mahesh Babu ‘ Businesssman’ and Venkatesh ‘Bodyguard’ are two big films released this week . Siddiq's ‘Bodyguard’ which tasted success in Malyalam, Tamil and Hindi hit the screens in Andhra Pradesh today. Let’s see whether this remake get the same response here or not. Venkatadri (Venkatesh), the ace bodyguard was sent to Jammalamadugu by his uncle Mohana Rao ( Tanikella Bharani) to protect Varadarajulu Naidu , a local leader and life saver of Venkatadri. When Varadarajulu Naidu daughter Keerthi (Trisha) adamant on finishing her final year of degree in Hyderabad, Venkatadri is sent along with her as Bodyguard to protect her from rival Shiva Reddy (Kota). Venkatadri also joins the collage and follows Trisha like a shadow. Annoyed with the bodyguard, Keerthi and her friend Swathi (Saloni) sketches a plan to divert his concentration away from them. Keerthi make prank calls  pretending she is in love with him blocking the caller id. Believing in her calls, Venkatadri also blindly falls for her. Making prank calls regularly, Keerthi also starts loving Venkatadri. Now hide and seek drama runs for a while before Varadarajulu Naidu announces Keerthi marriage with her brother in Law Shankar Naidu (Subba Raju). Rest of the story is how the love story between Venkatadri and Keerthi takes twists and turns.
Performance
Venkatesh is misfit for the role. The role is better suited for a young generation hero with mass appeal who can do bit of emotional acting. Venkatesh acting is good in last twenty minutes. Considering his statures as hero in Tollywood, his role is very weak. Trisha acted well in some scenes. She is slim and still looking hot. Saloni got significant role as Trisha friend and she justified her role. Prakash Raj role is brief  as Trisha father so are many other roles in the movie. Tanikella Bharani, Dharmavarapu Subhrahamanyam, Kota, Subba Raju, Pragathi are just okay in their brief roles. Ali and Venumadhav tried to generate laughter.
Technical
Director Gopichand Mallineni failed miserably in remaking the movie to suit the taste of Telugu audience. It is an out dated script we know, but the miserable screenplay also played spoilsport. Director made feeble attempts to generate humour through half-baked scenes. There is nothing in the story for almost 85% of the movie. All the twists and turns take place only in the last 20 minutes. The movie runs a t slow pace testing the patience of audience. Coming to other technical values, S S Thaman gave couple of good songs. Background score  should have been better. Choreography is a big minus. Shaym K Naidu cinematography is good. Action scenes by Ram Laxman are routine. There is lot of scope for Editing.
Analysis
Bodyguard is a romantic action film which is dull, out dated and not convincing to the current generation of audience. Audience finds it difficult to connect with the story where protagonist blindly fell in love with a prank caller. As the whole story happens in last 20 minutes, it is very important to engage the audience with interesting screenplay. Bodyguard misses it big time. The little effort director made to infuse comedy in the scenes misfired. Climax should have been better. But, why this movie fared well in Tamil and Hindi? It is because of the strong mass following Vijay and Salman got. They carried the movie on their shoulder with action scenes and their unique style of acting. Unfortunately, Venkatesh doesn’t have the same mass following like the above. The little content in the movie might appeal to family audience. With ‘Businessman’ is more targeted towards youth, ‘Bodyguard’ can draw few families to the theaters with big promotion.