'Orange' Movie Review

'Orange' Review: No Juice, Full Of Seeds

Film: Orange
Rating: 2/5
Cast: Ramcharan Tej, Genelia, Shahzahn Padamsee, Prakashraj, Prabhu, Brahmi, Srinivas Avasarala, Madhurima, Manjula, Sanjay, Sameer, Pavitra Lokesh, Vennela Kishore, Sanchita, Naga Babu and others
Music: Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography: Rajasekhar, Kiran
Editor: Marthand K Venkatesh
Story, screenplay, direction: Baskar
Producer: Naga Babu
Release date: 26/11/2010

Ramcharan Tej is coming back after his mega blockbuster ‘Magadheera’ and this time, he is seen in a lover boy image. And Bhaskar, after his Parugu has come up with this ‘Orange’.

Story:

Set on the backdrop of Australia, Ram (Ramcharan) is an youngster who loves graffiti but he doesn’t believe in love for lifetime. He wants to say truth all the while with respect to love life and live with open mind, open thought and open action with his partner.

This leads to a clash of ideology with Jaanu (Genelia) who studies in the same college and what starts out as a romantic tale between them both turns out to be a relationship of confusion and complications.

Ram explains this entire story as his flash back while a police cop (Prakash Raj) asks him as a part of informal interrogation (!)

Jaanu believes in everlasting love but given the thought process of Ram, will they be together? Can they really love each other? All this forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Ramcharan did his best to fit the lover boy tag and he was neat in his dance and dialogue delivery. Two things he must avoid- a clean shave and full body shots while in a group. There was no emotional depth in his character so his body language was average.

Genelia was depressing and disappointing. Her costumes were bizarre, the make up was patchy and her face looked blotted. She has lost the innocence and charm. Perhaps it is age but the blame also goes to the styling and her image etching. Performance wise, she was regular and didn’t have any special acts.

Shahzahn comes like a breath of fresh air and though she was brief, she looks cute and attractive. She has the potential to take lead roles.

Prakashraj was regular, Brahmi’s comedy was not upto the mark, Prabhu and Pavitra Lokesh were alright, Vennela Kishore was wasted, Madhurima was quick but sweet, Naga Babu made his presence felt. The others didn’t have much to offer except filling the screens and rolling out few lines.

Highlights:

Songs (although no much variety among each other)
Dances by Ram Charan
Production Values

Disappointments:

Theme
Dialogue
Lack of comedy
Lack of emotion quotient
Characterizations

Analysis:

The fundamental blunder in the film is that when speaking about love it should be run on emotions and feeling but not on calculation. To make things worse, Baskar tries to explain the calculation with his own narrative style which was rather confusing. He had something noble and different in mind but he could not conceive it in the right manner on the screen. There is no emotion, no romance, no chemistry between the lead pair, no sentiment and above all, no comedy. At one stage, it becomes like a boring mathematics class where the audience have become students and are trying to understand what Professor Bhaskar is trying to explain on the love algorithm.

The other disappointment is the philosophy on love. While it is nice to have an ocean full of love, it is common sense that love alone is not life. They are two different entities and the essence of life is in striking a balance between both. Fortunately, what Baskar was trying to say ended up confusing many in the theatre but to those who may have understood a fraction of it, this is truly dangerous. On the other hand, there are quite a number of instances where Bhaskar tried to take the route of Gautam Menon but the difference is chalk and cheese.

The good side of the film is the songs and their picturization which was really impressive and visually appealing. Charan’s efforts in songs were commendable. The fight sequence which involves the spray cans was also creative and colorful. As for his much hyped sky diving stunt, that is not so appealing as expected.

Overall, the film is good on presentation but very poor in content and completely blotched on narration and concept. While the masses have nothing in it, the class audience will feel like they are in a classroom. And regarding the mega fans…well, it looks like 2010 is just not their year as their favorite heroes seem to be dealing with unconventional characters.

Bottomline: Sour fruit with seeds of confusion and misdirection