Tirumala Tirupati Venkatesa
A laugh-riot
Shakespeare’s 400-year old play Taming of the Shrew still inspires filmmakers and this time three shrews are being tamed by their husbands in Tirumala Tirupati Venkatesa. The first-half of the film is truly hilarious while the second half is stretched a bit too far and deserves a trimming. Debutant director Satibabu displays his skills in comedy like his mentor EVV Satyanarayana and Kovai Sarala who is in demand in Telugu should restrain herself instead of over-acting each time.

Kota Sreenivasa Rao, a watchman in a factory, has three daughters Roja, Kovai Sarala and Maheswari and he pampers them a lot despite his wife (Sivaparvathi) warning against him. The girls build castles in the air and dream of marrying rich grooms. Srikanth is a hoarding painter, Brahmanandam, a drummer at funerals and Ravi Teja is a quack. When Kota’s boss leave on a foreign trip, they hand over their bungalow to Kota. His daughters move into the house to enjoy the comfort of richness. When Srikanth and his friends are thrown out of their rented house, they move in as tenants into the Kota’s house claiming to be rich people. The three girls predictably woo the boys. And they learn of their true identities only after their marriage. The girls neck them out but one day the three friends come back to their homes with Rs one crore each and the sisters start loving them for the money. After some clashes, the sisters realise the importance of love over money and they live happily ever after.

The sub-plot of Chandramohan and his daughter Roja doesn’t jell with the proceedings with light-hearted entertainer.

Sakutumba Saparivara Samethanga
Love triumphs
It’s a typical SV Krishna Reddy family entertainer emphasising that love and affection among family members is more crucial than money. Srikanth wins the sympathy of the viewers as the son craving for love despite being pitted against artistes of calibre like ANR and Suhasini Maniratnam. The theme of happiness in unity comes across but both, the new girl Jayalaxmi and SVK’s music, are disappointing.

Srikanth has a drunkard father (Kota), a quarrelling mother and sister and a gambling brother (Maharshi) but a lovable sister-in-law (Suhasini). He has to even bear the expenses of his brother-in-law with his meagre bank salary. He respects his sister-in-law for her tolerance and she treats him like a son. He falls in love with Jayalaxmi. For her hand in marriage, she asks him to get the permission of her grandfather (ANR). Srikanth meets him and learns that ANR had lost his daughter due to ill-treatment by her in-laws. So he has decided to marry his granddaughter only into a lovable family. Srikanth bribes his family members and asks them to be good for 30 days just to impress ANR and the family starts behaving properly. An impressed ANR confirms the marriage but Srikanth reveals the truth. But ANR tells him that he knew about the family through Suhasini and all ends well.

Krishna Reddy’s 25th film is also clean but the basic plot gets diluted since prominence is given to entertainment. He could have worked up more scenes between ANR and Suhasini instead of focussing on comedy.

BVS Prakash>>>