
The film opens like a Disney film. A stork is shown flying a crying baby swaddled in cloth. The baby is adopted by rishi Kanav (Sachin Khedekar) and grows up to a beautiful maiden named Shakuntala (Samantha Ruth Prabhu). Samantha is like a Disney princess. The small and big animals of the forest adore her and even the plants and trees communicate with her in their own way. She’s totally smitten by King Dushyant (Dev Mohan), when he barges into her idyllic world. Everything is hunky dory, till she’s cursed by Durvasa (Mohan Babu). She undergoes lots of hardships before the happy ending takes place. Dev Mohan also gets a chance to flex his muscles in between and fights droves of Asurs, helping his friend king of gods Indra (Jisshu Sen Gupta), wipe out the demons.
Gunashekar is a competent enough director so one can’t figure out why he’s mounted the film as a play. The excessive gestures, the bombastic dialogue and the unnecessary melodrama doesn’t do justice to a story of thwarted love. The narration is so over the top that you unintentionally laugh at the proceedings. For Hindi viewers, the atrocious translation from Telugu further plays spoilsport. The song lyrics, especially, get totally lost in the translation. The overall impact of the film diminishes because of the above reasons. The film’s rendering of animals and birds is top class in some frames and dips below par in some.
Instead of going for a dubbed version, the director should have released the film all over India with subtitles. At least then the singularity of the film wouldn’t have been trifled with. The present attempt looks too archaic and stilted. And there is a lack of chemistry between Samantha and Dev Mohan. That further erodes the film’s appeal. Samantha gamely tries to bring gravitas to the film. She looks ethereal as Shakuntala but even her grace and beauty aren’t enough to elevate the film. The most endearing portions of the film take place when Allu Arha, Allu Arjun’s young daughter, comes on screen. She plays young Bharat and her interactions with Dev Mohan and Samantha bring the film alive.
from filmfares
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