‘Naa Peru Shiva’ is a dubbed version of the Tamil film “Naan Mahan Alla” and has Kaarthi & Kajal in the lead roles. Kajal is on a roll these days in both the Telugu Film Industry as well as in Bollywood with back to back successes. The film has generated a good pre-release buzz so let us see how director Susindhran’s offering shapes up.

What’s it about : The film, set in Visakhapatnam, is a soft romantic entertainer in the first half and smoothly changes over into a revenge drama post interval. The story belongs to a very familiar ‘boy meets girl’ and ‘hero fights the baddies to take revenge’ genre. Shiva (Karthi) is the son of a call taxi driver (Jaya Prakash) and is a very happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He has an easy sense of humour and his frankness coupled with his wit endear him to one and all. Priya (Kajal Aggarwal) is the daughter of a famous lawyer. The two of them meet at the wedding of Shiva’s friend and sparks fly between them.

A breezy romantic drama follows and all appears well until Shiva’s father becomes an accidental witness to the gruesome acts of a violent rapist gang that decapitates the bodies of its victims. The city is rocked by a series of murders and the police are hot on the trail of this gang. In this scenario, wary of getting caught by the police due to the evidence given by Shiva’s father,the gang makes a couple of attempts on his life and ultimately succeeds.

The rest of the story is about how the hero Shiva traces the gang responsible for his father’s murder, and how he takes his revenge.

What is Good : While there is nothing new or novel in the story, the director makes up for it with some brilliant romantic comedy in the first half. Karthi and Kajal share some incredible screen chemistry and it shows beautifully in the scenes involving the two. There is not one dull moment in the first half and the director slowly builds up the story towards the interval. Karthi is a brilliant actor and prodigious acting talent seems to run in his family(Karthi is Surya’s brother). His eyes have a lot of soul and expression in them and he uses them to full effect.

There are some really good scenes in the first half like the one in which Shiva goes to Priya’s father to reveal their love story and the way in which Shiva woos Priya in the opening stages of the film. Karthi is going to be as big as his brother Surya one day. Watch out for him.

Kajal Aggarwal looks gorgeous as the love interest of Karthi but has little to do on screen except romance him. There is not much scope for her to act but she did full justice to whatever screen time she was allotted.

The director, Susindhran, needs to be commended for taking care of the screenplay well. When the story line is wafer thin, it takes a lot of skill to keep the audience happy. The scene where the rapist gang finally succeeds in killing Shiva’s father was very well conceived. The thread involving the Don of the shipping village by the sea is also very intelligent and the director uses it well to give Shiva’s vengeance angle some credibility.

The 4 members who made up the rapist gang need to be specially applauded for some intense and riveting performances. The rest of the cast did their job as required.

What is bad: The story is a very old one and every hero in every generation from NTR Sr to NTR Jr must have done a film based on it. The movie loses a little tempo after the interval where the hero Shiva tries to start getting serious about a job.

There is some slightly unnerving Tamil nativity and flavour (a bane of all dubbed films) which might not go down well with some people here. There is also nothing major for the B & C center crowds with the only major fight in the movie coming towards the climax. They will have to make do with Kajal’s glamour and a few scenes which hint at sex and violence.

People who expect the movie to be an intense revenge drama will be disappointed. The love angle of Kajal and Karthi is also left incomplete and it would have been nicer to have a more rounded end to that.

The climax scenes where the 4 rapists overpower a seasoned Don and his associates so easily is a little ludicrous but such things are nothing new in our films.

Technical Departments : Yuvan Shankar Raja scores some magnificent background score for the film and this is a major asset both in the romantic scenes as well as in the action episodes. Cinematography is another major asset to the movie and you can feel the top notch camera work. The song “Vennela Chetha” stands out for its picturization. The editing is absolutely perfect.

Dialogues and dubbing work are of a pretty high standard and make the movie a pleasure to watch.

Action sequences are well choreographed and are not over the top.

Analysis: The movie is an easy weekend watch and will do well in multiplexes and A centers. There is some nice romantic comedy in the film and the pair of Karthi & Kajal are a pleasure to watch. If you are prepared to ignore the old and wafer thin story, you might just enjoy this movie with a lot of popcorn and some friends. It will be a good casual watch but nothing worth coming back for.