Nani, the male lead in Dil Raju’s Nenu Local, is known for his ability to realistically portray the charming and the menacing. And so the movie makes sure that Nani’s Babu, that charming rogue we all loathed in college, is given equal opportunities to be both. He gets to look good, with artfully styled clothes and hair.
What’s a good Telugu film without gravity-defying stunts? This one has some of them, a lot of slow motion shots and ear-thumping BGM that belongs in Baahubali.
And gravity-defying or not, the stunts are designed to not interfere with the artful styling of the hair, which stays firmly in place throughout.
*****
This writer was forced to drink a bad batch of coffee to wash Keerthy Suresh’s (cunningly named Keerthi) cute act down. She would have preferred popcorn, but since the popcorn was priced like it was harvested from gold fields …
This is painful to sit through.
*****
This Dil Raju produced film (directed by Trinadha Rao Nakkina) is the sort of movie that has both actors playing versions of themselves. Nani plays Nani; Keerthy Suresh does that lopsided smile thing plus a lot of coy heroine ticks that are basically her persona now.
Heavily promoted as a new age version of the typical romantic comedy, Nenu Local does manage to surprise occasionally. For one, it is self-aware, if nothing else. There are several references to Nani’s body of work – almost all of them are romantic films. And all of them follow the same pattern. Nani explains the pattern to his parents in a scene in this film: “I’ll go to college, do my MBA, and follow girls.”
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Keerthy Suresh, on the other hand, is the good girl who does not like the overtly familiar type of guys (the type Nani usually plays). So naturally, she gets romantically involved with him. And soon after, Navin Chandra is introduced to stir things up a bit, before the gods that govern romance set things straight. Nani’s previous Majnu was a variation on the same theme; making all of this a little redundant.
What saves the film from being a total disaster is the tongue-in-cheek humour, and its leads’ ability to still make the story seem relevant. But this formulaic romantic comedy is a sign that Nani needs to up his game. Keerthy Suresh needed to up her game too, but her sign came two films ago.
*****
The Nenu Local review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.