100% Love Movie Review

 

Screenplay: Hari Prasad
Music: Devi Sri Prasad
Cinematography: Venkata Prasad
Art: A S Prakash
Editor: Kasturi Srinivas
Executive producer: Edida Raja
Produced by: Bunny Vas
Presented by: Allu Aravind
Banner: Geeta Arts
Story and directed by: Sukumar
Release date: May 6, 2011

What's it about!

 
Balu Mahendra (Naga Chaitanya) is top ranking student. His maradalu (uncle's daughter) Mahalakshmi (Tamannah), comes from village to stay with his family and study in Hyderabad so that she can get good marks in studies. Balu is sort of narcissist and doesn't like if other students get top rank. With the help of Balu, Mahalakshmi studies well and surprisingly stands as college topper which irks him. Slowly they fall in love but fail to express it. When the time comes to express their feelings to each other, ego problems erupt. They part ways and soon engage to different persons. Rest of the movie is about how they realize their true feelings.

Analysis

In new age love stories, a strong antagonist has become a dinosaur. Ego problems between lead pair, communication gap, and dilemma over their true feelings have become main conflict points to drive the story. Director Sukumar who has made three films so far - the lovely Arya, violent Jagadam, and confused flick Arya-2 - weaves this film, 100 % Love around ego clashes and repressed feelings of the lead pair.

The film quite fairly starts off well with some fresh ideas and lovable scenes. In fact, the first half of the movie is funny and entertaining. Post interval it falls into complete melodrama, thereby lessening the overall mood. Yet, the movie comes back on track before the penultimate scenes and saving it.

Director Sukumar is revered by many in the film industry for his fresh thoughts as he brought novelty in story telling and hero characterization with his debut movie, Arya. His subsequent films especially Arya-2 were total failure. But in 100%Love, he shows off his early spark in some scenes. Thankfully, he has lessened the eccentricity in the hero's character that is good.  

He has also used songs as narrative mode, which should be complemented, but the songs hardly make any impact on the screen.

It has good chemistry between Naga Chaitanya and Tamannah and some cool montages. 100%Love would have made a greater impact if the post interval scenes were written in better way and not told in predictable manner.

Performances

Naga Chaitanya as a student with narcissist attitude goes well with the script. He underplays his emotions, which is perfect for the character. Tamannah shows variation in two shades of her role - that of a simple village girl and then modern working class girl. She also shows off midriff to lengthy duration to titillate the male eye. Their chemistry is also fantastic and they look sweet as a pair.

Among other roles, Anand as second lead is good; Naresh as father, K R Vijaya as grandmother and Vijaykumar as grandfather are effective. Newcomer Tara Alisha's is nothing but blink and miss act.

Although the film is entirely shot on interiors, cinematography by Prasad is not at all good. Especially the slow-motion scenes that are made at 500 Frames Per Second look patchy. Devi Sri Prasad's songs are good to ear and foot tapping but they are not good on screen. Yet, songs of 'Infatuation' and 'Diyyallo Diyyallo' stand out.

As a writer of the movie, Sukumar succeeds in parts. As a director, he proves again that he has great visual flair but he's slowly losing grip on taut narrative skills. 

Bottom-line!

100 % Love offers some lovely situations, some time pass entertainment in the first half. Second half runs on predictable manner but it also some 'touchy moments'. The film has many blemishes and but on the whole, it has ingredients that appeal to youth audiences better.

Rating: 3.25/5