Black and White

Several films have come with treason by extremists as the backdrop. In most of the cases, the extremists made use of religion, politics as the source to show extremism. Director Srikanth, went a step ahead, and tried family system too as a source in this regard. Once again the Telugu film industry tries to highlight how the innocent are getting caught in the cobweb, despite the high-level patriotism they have in mind. He was able to maintain a good amount of suspicion to certain extent, but he lost grip on the subject frequently which has caused a bumpy movement of the film.
Bharat (Rajiv Kanakala) is an orphan and brought up in a orphanage. Sreenu (Uttej) is his close friend. Bharat studies hard and becomes a software professional. Being an orphan, he loves children very much. Once someextremists plan to attack the police and gain entry into his car and forcibly take him with them to the outskirts of the city. By the time, they were about to blast the police jeep and van, Bharat drives his car to block the movement of the police and saves them. As a result, the government announces Best Citizen Award and he is expected to take the award from the President of India on Republic Day. At this juncture, he comes across Sameera (Sindhu Tulani), who is doing fashion designing. Their friendship grows and turns into love. With the acceptance of Sameera's parents (CVL Narasimha Rao and Ayesha Jaleel), they get married. However, Sameera keeps a condition that their first night should be only after completion of her studies. Meanwhile, there is an attack on Bharat and somehow he survives from it. Again there is another attack in the form of electric shock and accidentally Sreenu gets it, and he too survives from it. Just before the Republic Day, i.e., on January 15, Bharat tries to surprise Sameera and wish her happy birthday at midnight and she hits him with a flower vase causing grievous injury. So, left with no option, Bharat tells Sameera to go to Delhi and receive the award. At this juncture, a bomb blast occurs in Hyderabad in which two persons get killed. The case is handed over to CBI. The CBI officer Khan (Jackie Shroff), who is very shrewd, notices a car in a video footage and finds that it belongs to Bharat. He questions Bharat, but could not find any conclusive evidence. On investigation, the CBI sleuths notice that Sameera's parents were Muslims. Then they arrest Sameera's father, who reveals the entire story. Sameera is a Muslim girl and her fiancee, who masterminds blasts in Mumbai gets killed just before their engagement. So, she had decided to avenge the killing. As per a plan, she cornered Bharat and married him. On learning this, Khan and Bharat go to the function, but could not stop her from going to the dais due to some security reasons. However, Bharat to prevent a disaster, snatches Khan's revolver and kills Sameera.
PLUS: The director has maintained suspense all through the film and the storyline though not predictable appears to be somewhat interesting. Rajiv Kanakala gave an impressive performance. Sindhu Tulani is at her best. She not only filled the glamour slot, but also appeared romantic in some scenes and got good opportunity to prove her acting capabilities. Jackie Shroff, though appeared a little old, did justice to his role. Uttej is good as hero's buddy. However, Rajiv Kanakala's performance is the only highlight and plus point for the movie.
MINUS: Though the storyline is average, the director gave a good twist to it. Though it was he who penned the story, screenplay and dialogues, the director due to inexperience remained butter-fingered. He lost grip while running the subject many times. Music by Vijay Kurakula though not very impressive in songs, with no foot-tapping numbers, his background score is good and has elevated the mood of the film in some scenes.
Remarks: Camera work by Joshi is not bad and Marthand K Venkatesh did a neat job. Production values of UK Avenues are okay. The film is good for serious viewing, and the entertainment values are very less. Placement of songs is also improper and spoiled the tempo of the film. Srikanth Vemulapalli, however, appeared a promising director, and hopes he could deliver a good film in his next project by learning from the drawbacks he faced in this film.