.Veeram might not have one of the best storylines, but it was a movie that targeted a set of audience and was made to satisfy them. One of the main reasons the flick clicked was majorly because of Ajith Kumar’s screen presence.
Pawan Kalyan is someone who has his own style of acting and mass factor and without an iota of doubt, you could say that Powerstar would do complete justice to a script such as this, even without seeing his performance. That is the consistency of the actor over the years. Having said that, let’s see how well the film as a whole has worked?
A hot-tempered guy (Pawan Kalyan) with 4 younger brothers, who falls in love with a soft, kind-hearted girl (Shruti Haasan). But to gain the love of the woman, he should never again resort to violence but that’s not going to be easy especially when the girl’s family is in danger. Does he manage to tackle the baddie at the same time not letting his love life fall berserk? This is the story of Katamarayudu. The core theme of Veeram has been retained, but the director has kept the screenplay as fresh as possible from the original Tamil version.
Even Pawan Kalyan's characterisation has been sketched quite differently from Ajith in Veeram. Here it is stiffer and subtle. They have taken special care on the romance part which is laced better and dealt more logically. The segment where Pawan falls in love with Shruti Haasan looks interesting, mainly because it shows Pawan Kalyan in a different shade - a subtle, fun, graceful and shy side.
Katamarayudu has enough potential to be presented as a no-holds-barred entertainer with some crowd pleasing dialogues and plenty of action scenes. Pawan and Ali complement each other as well and they manage to break the movie into laughter with their wisecracks. Shruti is just another pretty face in the movie and has absolutely nothing to do other than look pretty and dance gracefully. Coming to the songs, a couple of them work while a couple of them slow the proceedings.
The first half of the film goes largely on a lighter note with enough romance and comedy but the second is more mass driven and offers some old school template action sequences. It gets a little boring towards the end. One feels the 2nd half was a little loosely dealt.
BGM, fight scenes, and romance are the major positives but had the screenplay been tighter in the second half, Katamarayudu would have been a perfect crowd-pleasing treat for Pawan Kalyan fans. Director Kishorekumar Pardasani had earlier worked with Pawan Kalyan in Gopala Gopala and has earned the name of a maker who is adept in dealing with emotional elements. In Katamarayudu, the emotional elements are better dealt with than the mass elements. If it had been the other way round, the film may have clicked better.