Yamudu Blasts Telugu Audience

At the very least, Yamudu is pretty unpretentious about what it is trying to be, namely, an out-and-out commercial piece incorporated with as many cliches as is legally possible without being accused of strangulating the audience. The film is almost raving mad in its mindlessness, and if not for the sheer charisma of Suriya, it would have been pretty hard to sit through.

Suriya plays Narsimham, an upright, strong, handsome, articulate, skilled, intelligent, dedicated, tough, responsible and caring police officer in Razole. Yes, we got all that from the 50,000 scenes and dialogues showcasing his prowess in the beginning.

Narsimham has a run-in with a Vizag real estate don Purushottam (Prakash Raj), who keeps bumping off people, grabbing their lands, and extorting money from them. Pretty soon, Purushottam gets Narsimham transferred to Vizag, and starts playing goon games with him.

The film evidently has its reasons to have been a hit in Tamil - it is fast-paced and has plenty of action, and has a good star cast. Unfortunately, there's no novelty that a Telugu audience will be treated to in Yamudu, especially when you consider the fact that successful Telugu films almost always have the backing of skillful dialogue writers, a factor lost out thanks to the the dubbing job in this one.

While the action is decently-timed, the absolute loudness of the proceedings, and the brutal and rash violence is likely to be a huge put off since that is all the film offers as its USP. The impossible stunts and insane roaring would have gone down well with the audience if they were punctuated by something meaningful, which they are not.

For Suriya, this is a role that requires him to do nothing at all. Like we said, he's one of the key reasons you'd probably venture to watch this flick. Anushka plays Surya's love interest, and she manages to curve up her uni-dimensional role pretty well.

Then, there are Prakash Raj and Nasseer, the only other familiar faces around, save for the hero's sidekick, who's played by the Tamil comedian Vivek. Prakash Raj feels like a caricature of a caricature - he may as well have sleepwalked through this role. The rest of the cast is mostly all in the villain's camp, and is an alien bunch.

Devi Sri Prasad's compositions have no steam to start with, but the songs are mildly enjoyable thanks to all the fanfare that goes with them. The cinematography has an overly fast-paced quality to it, and the cuts and chases seem like they were carried too far. Lacklustre visual quality on the whole mars the movie-watching experience, though.

You could watch it if your doctor absolutely recommends it, but even if he did, we think you'd better tell him Tollywood has much better films showing in town right now.