All Style No Substance. Review on Johnny Movie

Story: Johnny?s (Pawan Kalyan) family of father(Raghuwaran), step mother(Lilette Dubey) and step brother believes that money is all important and everything should be done to make money. He doesn?t subscribe to this view and hence he leaves the family without telling and wows never to come back. Now to earn his livelihood he becomes a martial arts coach staying with Anthony(Mallikarjun Rao). His entire day goes in coaching, playing Basket Ball, hanging around the café and having fun and also occasionally becoming a neighbourhood Robin Hood. Typically he becomes notorious with police and often has to be confronted with them. During one of the Robin Hood acts Geetha(Renu Desai) sees and informs police because she cannot see pain and violence. It so happens that this robin hood act was done to protect the honour of Geetha?s canteen person?s daughter and from him she comes to know the circumstances also that Johnny is a very good person by heart. Realising her mistake she goes to Johnny to apologise and from there their relationship starts and culminates in marriage. After marriage she asks Johnny to shun violence because she as an orphan doesn?t want to loose Johnny as the only mate. He agrees. Now comes the turning point, Geetha is suffering from blood cancer in advanced stage and to cure her he has to take her to Mumbai hospital as the last resort, which will cost him a fortune. He is short of money and hence against his wishes he goes and asks his father to support him, unfortunately at this stage his step mother insults him and he comes back without the money. Now they start to Mumbai with whatever savings they have for the treatment for Geetha. Rest of the film is about how he manages to get the treatment and all the hurdles he faces for her. Does Johnny succeed in his venture? What is the cost for it? What is the fate of Johnny and Geetha are the crust of the rest of the film. Strengths of the Movie:

The whole film is stylish, cinematography of the film is extremely good and the shot execution is very good. Kudos to Shyam Palav & Chota K Naidu for their splendid job behind the camera. The art designing and the costume selection is extremely realistic and it gels well with the whole ambience of the film. Anand Sai for art Design and similarly Renu Desai for costumes have done a great job. Pawan Kalyan looks very different and the getup suits him for the rugged character. He did extremely well in pathos scenes. His antics are very stylish in the beginning of the film. He did well in fights too. Pawan Kalyan looks rugged and manly with an exercised body. Renu Desai: She is the perfect fit for the role of Geetha. She looks extremely homely in this film by wearing sarees and choodidaars. Her histrionics in hospital scenes are worth applauding. Others in the film have practically very little role and most of them performed very well. The choreography of the songs are extremely good even though there was no melody in the songs. There were very few dialogues to comment on and most of them are very normal. The emotions were shown through the facial expressions mostly. In this department Pawan Kalyan has excelled. Highest point of the film is the fights in the films. They have been shot exceptionally well and designed totally differently. In almost all the fights Pawan Kalyan has done extremely well. By far the best fights ever shot in a Telugu movie till date. The fights it self are worth the money. Weakness of the Movie: Practically no story, Pawan Kalyan failed miserably in this section. It was better if he would have left to some professional story writer. The background score is pretty pathetic and the songs were not appealing except for one song ee reyi teeyanidi. Ramana Gogula did a miserable job in this section. The other major weakness of the film was the screenplay which is pathetic and the scenic order is chaotic. Similarly it would best left to some professional.

The Length of the picture is little 20-30 minutes longer hence loosing the effectiveness of the film. It would have been better if they trim the film by at least 20 minutes in the second half. Coming to Direction of the movie it was brilliant in patches. The songs went along the story no deviation from the main story. The montage effects were used very effectively in various places. The emotions were handled well and never did they go overboard. Fights were fitted well and executed very efficiently. Over all Pawan Kalyan shows he has directorial capabilities but he has long way to go master it. It would have best if he had left screen play and story to some professional. Over all analysis: First half of the film is pretty slow. Second half is pathetic. There is no story in the film. The good points on the screen in this film are 3 songs, fights and the love track between Pawan and Renu in the first half. Pawan Kalyan lets the viewers down with his story and screenplay capabilities. For Pawan Kalyan?s Fans this is major let down because it is not a typical PK movie. One can watch this film with an academic interest to study how not to direct a film.

This film has all style and no substance. Credits: Punchline: All Style No Substance Genre: Love Banner: Geetha Arts Cast: Pawan Kalyan, Renu Desai, Raghuvaran, Geeta, Devi Charan, Lalitha Dubey, Mallikharjuna Rao, MS Narayana, Narsing Yadav, Brahmaji, Satya Prakash, Ali, Melkote, Punit Issar Music: Ramana Gogula Photography: Shyam Palav & Chota K Naidu Dialogues: Satyanand Art: Anand Sai Editing: Yousuf Khan Thrills: Vijay & Ridley Costumes & Production designer: Renu Desai Producer: Allu Arvind Story - Screenplay - Direction: Pawan Kalyan Theatrical release date: 25th April 2003