'Snehithudu' Review: A Perfect Line To Line Copy

Film: Snehithudu
Rating: 3/5Banner: Gemini Film Circuit
Cast: Vijay, Jeeva, Sriram, Ileana D'Cruz, Sathyaraj and Others
Music: Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography: Manoj Paramahamsa
Editing: Anthony
Producers: Raju Easwaran, Dil Raju
Director: Shankar
Released Date: January 26, 2012

This is the dubbed version of Tamil film ‘Nanban’ remade from Hindi hit ‘3 Idiots’. The pull factor for this film is the brand name of Shankar who is known for mega budget films like Sivaji and Robot as well as the youth appealing flicks like Boys. Let us see how it faired at Telugu audience.

Story:
The film starts with the search of Venkat (Sri Ram) and Nikhil (Jeeva) for their missed friend Panchabhatla Saranga Paani (Vijay) along with their college mate Srinu. The story goes back to college days where Paani used to excel in his outlook, thought process and also acts. He was the man who was intelligent and uses his wisdom subtly to silence the seniors and also the most hard nut professors. Viroopaksha Sundaram (Satyaraj), the strict professor and principal of the college (Ideal Engineering College), who was in short known as Virus had a daughter (Ileana). Paani falls in love with her and she responds positively. But Srinu, known as silencer, was a studious student who develops competitive rivalry with Paani. When Srinu gets insulted by Paani in a conspiracy the former challenges that he would be in top of all in future and crosses even the first ranker Paani. Finally who tops who forms the rest of narration!

Performances: 
Vijay is ok but cannot be compared to Aamir Khan. It is in fact an inevitable thing to take comparison between the two as each acted in two language versions.

Ileana is with sick look. She is almost like a corpse in some scenes with no flesh on body. Maintaining slim look can be welcomed but that doesn’t mean guys love to watch skeletons as heroines. She performed well but that wasn’t elevated due to her look.

Satya Raj is the show stealer. He performed very well but no originality. He simply imitated Boman Irani from the original. Still, Satyaraj owned the characteristics of the character and gave his best.

Sri Ram and Jeeva performed well to their best. Rest did their job well as per the requirement.

Technically, the film deserves commendations for cinematography. Music could have been better. It’s ok but not captivating. Director Shankar didn’t break his head on narration as he decided to be very loyal to original.

Highlights:

• Story line
• Screenplay
• Dialogue

Drawbacks:

• Not so captivating music
• Heroine

Analysis:
The film is a direct lift and shift from 3 Idiots. The creativity of Shankar wasn’t seen anywhere except in canning the songs. The film appeals for those who haven’t watched ‘3 Idiots’ and for the rest it will be a below average one. And for those who respect Shankar as independent film maker, it will be a blow to see a point to point copy- paste activity.

It will be a full treat for student community those come to theatres with expectations. But the condition of not getting the experience of 3 Idiots is a must. Even otherwise, they can enjoy but may not tune up to expectations.

There is no much problem with nativity aspect as the backdrop of the film is completely fixed in a college. And to match to the nativity, comedian turned hero Sunil gave dubbing for the character of Silencer who happens to the humorous one in the film.

First half of the film goes in hilarious tone with full of college episodes and even the second half carries the same. Though the length of the film is almost close to 2:50 Mins, it will not bring any sort of boredom. It’s a film with proven script in Hindi and now it’s proven again in Telugu as well.

Bottom-line: Watch it