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Nani, Bindhu Madhavi and Hari Priya have worked together for a new film titled Pilla Zamindar. The movie has been directed by Ashok on Sri Sailendra Movies Banner and the film hit the screens today. Let us see how the movie fares.

Story: The story is an adapted native version of ‘A Millionaire’s First Love’. Praveen Jayaramaraju aka PJ (Nani) is a very rich and spoilt brat. He is an arrogant playboy and behaves rudely with those around him. He is the legal heir to the fabulously rich Zamindar Rudra Rama Raju (Bapineedu) and this is the reason for his arrogance. In a bid to change PJ’s attitude towards life and to teach him the importance of values, Rudra Rama Raju leaves behind a will that states that PJ must achieve some objectives before the wealth can be his. To fulfill those objectives, PJ is forced to travel to a small village called Siripuram where he enrolls in a government college. Military Rajanna (Rao Ramesh) is the principal. He comes across various people there who transform his life, including his former girlfriend Sindhu (Hari Priya).

What is good: Pilla Zamindar has a few genuinely good comedy scenes and some good dialogues in places. The movie’s story and the hero’s characterization suit Nani perfectly. He delivers a good performances in some places(More on this later). There are a couple of strong performances in the film, especially from M.S.Narayana(the Telugu lecturer), Rao Ramesh and Srinivas Avasarala (Kannababu). Hari Priya is ok as Sindhu but she hardly has any scope to perform.

Cameos by Vennela Kishore and Venu in the closing stages really liven up the film and they show what quality comedians can do to pep up the movie’s pace. The message contained in the movie is good and is especially relevant in today’s times when materialistic pleasures are dominating personal relationships.

Some one liners are truly memorable, like the dialogue “Devudu manushulni preminchi, vasthuvulanu vaadukovataniki thayaru chesadu. Kani manam vasthuvulani preminchi manushulni vadukuntunnam”.The item song fails to evoke any response from the crowd.

What is bad: Nani went a bit over the top with his histrionics in a lot of places and he tried to imitate Mahesh Babu’s performance in Khaleja. It looks quite odd. The romantic angle between Nani and Hari Priya is half baked and there is no chemistry at all between the two. There is an incomplete ending to this track.

Many of the ‘comedy’ scenes fail to bring any laughter and they are all very cliched. Bindhu Madhavi is wasted as the cousin of Nani. There is too much unrealistic sentiment and melodrama in the second half as the character PJ realises his follies and decides to redeem himself. The scenes in which he transforms from an arrogant guy into a paragon of humility have all been shown thousands of times in the 80’s and 90’s.

The episodes showing college politics and the classroom scenes bomb miserably. Screenplay and direction go for a major toss in the second half. There is not a single memorable song to remember and the picturization is nothing to write home about either.

Technical Departments : Dialogues by Chandra Sekhar are brilliant in places and just about average in most instances.Selva Ganesh disappoints with his music as well as background score. Editing and cinematography are ok for the budget.

There is nothing in terms of choreography for the audience. The biggest handicap is the screenplay. The story is not narrated with enough conviction and there are way too many loopholes in the script. The director also failed to bring out the comedy scenes well. His inexperience stands out glaringly.

Verdict: Pilla Zamindar should have been a safe formula film. But formula films only work when that formula is implemented correctly. On paper, Pilla Zamindar looks like it has everything – comedy,sentiment, college drama, a nice social message etc. But it fails quite badly in the implementation and presentation aspects. Frankly, everyone heaves a sigh of relief when Vennela Kishore and Venu make their cameos. Pilla Zamindar works in a few places.Sadly, it falls short by a big margin in most other areas.

– Mahesh K.S

123Telugu.com Rating : 2.5/5

Legend: 5 – Flawless

4 – Must Watch

3 – One Time Watch

2 – Wait for the DVD

1 – Stay Away