Kondaa review: Ram Gopal Varma and team are least bothered to make this indifferent film work

From the passionless execution to the disinterested cast, the biopic of politician couple Konda Murali and Konda Surekha has nothing going for it

Kondaa

Kondaa

Story:

Konda Murali is a hot-blooded youngster who’s never afraid to take the law into his hands to set the record straight. Well aware of his recklessness, his parents ask him to finish his education in Warangal, where he falls in love with a batch-mate Surekha. However, Murali’s closeness to naxal leader RK ruffles many feathers and his life is in danger when he breaks ties with a local politician Nalla Sudhakar. Will Murali march ahead despite all odds?

Review:

Whenever you watch a Ram Gopal Varma directorial, you are more or less prepared that he may not have made the film for the right reasons. However, given the goodwill of a Shiva, Kshana Kshanam or a Rakhta Charithra that he made many moons ago, you still give him that benefit out of the doubt and he continues to misuse that trust film after film.

Kondaa is another proof that the filmmaker is least interested in making a meaningful, coherent film these days. His indifference towards his own films reflects how someone of such vast potential has become a pale shadow of his past. The fictionalised version of the life story of politician couple Konda Murali and Konda Surekha is a terrible excuse to glorify crime and mindless bloodshed.

The filmmaking in Kondaa is so vanilla and bland - the characters, their motives, and their transformation are vague and abrupt. One book in a library convinces Konda to follow a naxal leader. A folk number on the stage convinces him to fall in love with a woman and out of the blues, he decides crime is his way of life and even joins hands with a politician.

Time and again, the male lead reiterates, ‘I’m Konda...Konda Murali’ and worse, the background score keeps parroting his name fearing we may have missed it. The typical eccentricities of a staple RGV film are omnipresent but they don’t even have shock value these days - his craft this time is limited to his camera angles on a bike handle and between the legs of a politician.

‘I just don’t care,’ seems to be the filmmaker’s cinematic response while making Kondaa. Worse, he chooses lead actors incapable of bringing any larger meaning or purpose to the characters. In the hands of reasonable performers, the characterisation of the no-nonsense Konda couple could’ve made for mildly interesting viewing. Kondaa is too dull to even be unintentionally hilarious.

Thrigun may have good looks but is terribly miscast in a weighty, intense role which needed an actor who had a more fluid body language and on-screen ease. An expressionless Irra Mor doesn’t do justice to Surekha’s character, which has a handful of intriguing dialogues and moments. Thulasi and LB Sriram are wasted in inconsequential roles.

Prudhvi Raj remains Prudhvi Raj in most of his scenes, it’s hard to look at the role beyond him and his repetitive sarcastic dialogue delivery. Even over-the-top television soaps have a more imaginative background score than Kondaa. 

Verdict:

If you still have some respect left for RGV’s films in his early years, save yourself from Kondaa. While he has certainly made bad films in the recent past, he looks clearly bored and disinterested here.

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Cast and Crew

Adith Arun

Irra Mor

L. B. Sriram

Where To Watch