Movie: 2 Countries
Rating: 1.5/5
Banner: Mahalakshmi Arts
Cast: Sunil, Manisha Raj, Srinivasa Reddy, Prudhvi, Sijju, Sitara, Krishna Bhagavan, Chandra Mohan, Sayaji Shinde and others
Dialogues: Sridhar Seepana
Music: Gopisunder
Cinematography: C Ram Prasad
Editor: Kotagiri
Produced and directed by: N Shankar
Release date: Dec 29, 2017
Sunil has been going through the worst phase in his career. None of his movies have excited the audiences recently. His latest film "Two Countries" too released amidst low expectations. Does this film have the right material to revive his career?
Let's find out.
Story:
Ullas (Sunil) believes in only one thing -- money. He agrees to marry a disabled girl as she is rich. However, he changes his mind when he learns that parents of his childhood friend Laya (Manisha Raj) are looking for an alliance.
After knowing that she earns $10k per month in the US, he marries Laya. Twist in the tale is that she is an alcohol addict.
How the life of Ullas and Laya takes a turn in the US forms the rest of the story.
Artistes’ Performances:
Sunil is not in shape (physically) and he's out of form (acting-wise).
Newcomer Manisha Raj has good looks but she is too inexperienced to play the alcohol addict that was originally played by Mamta Mohandas.
Srinivas Reddy has provided some good laughs. Prudhvi as cab driver in USA is okay.
Siva Reddy as marriage-broker is funny. Shayaji Shinde, Sithara, Raja Ravindra, Dev Gill and others have done routine acting.
Technical Excellence:
The film is mostly shot in USA. The locations of Tampa are captured beautifully. Cinematography and production values are the best part of this movie. However, other technicians have dished out terrible output.
The songs are bad. Dialogues are outdated with full of mindless rhyming sentences. Editor seems to have slept while editing it.
Highlights:
Nothing much
Drawback:
Music
Dialogues
Narration
Analysis
With Sunil giving a series of flops, no one had any expectations on this movie. If director N Shankar had made the movie for a few laughs, he would have got a decent hit. But the director loses grip on narration at the very beginning of the story.
The film happens to be a remake of Dileep and Mamta Mohandas starrer Malayalam blockbuster "Two Countries".
The story of the original movie is too corny and neither the writer Sreedhar Seepana nor director N Shankar have tried to better it.
All we get to see is Sunil imitating other stars and uttering dialogues in different ways to generate some laughs. However, not a single joke or dialogue brings at least a smile. The writing is insipid. The scenes are straight out of '80s and '90s movies.
There is a scene in the movie wherein Sunil contests the polls with the symbol of a frog. By the end of first half, audiences are bound to utter -- What the Frog!
Post-interval, the movie offers some watchable moments but it soon drifts into 'what the frog' zone again. The hero's name is Ullas but there is no ullasam in the film.
Scenes are quite silly. Acting is loud and stage-like. There is no proper editing either.
N Shankar has some good movies like "Sri Ramulayya", "Encounter" and "Bhadrachalam". The name that he had earned will surely be lost with this.
To top it all, he totally seems out of sync with the current trends in narration and direction.
A lot of farce happens in the name of comedy. All in all, this is another Sunil's movie that gives headache to the viewers, totally avoidable.
Bottom-line: Big Bore!