It has become a practice for several producers to announce a film as a bilingual right from the beginning of shooting, in case, the artistes in the film are well-versed with the people of both languages. Though the film had the complete scent of Tamil language, the producers are trying to cash in on the image of the artistes in Telugu, by releasing the dubbed version, though they claim that they are producing the film simultaneously in Telugu and Tamil languages. Same is the case with 'Saroja' directed by Venkat Prabhu and produced by T Siva, where the lead artistes are Srihari, Prakash Raj, Kaajal and Nikhita are well known artistes in Telugu. Though the film was exclusively made in Tamil, the director, by shooting only a few shots where the Tamil script appears on the screen in Telugu and released it to lure the gullible audiences. 

Viswanath @ Viswa (Prakash Raj) is a big industrialist, who always appears busy with his business trips. His wife is also maintains the club culture and enjoys the P3P status. Their daughter Saroja, with no limitations, moves with her friends freely. Ravichandran @ Ravi (Srihari) is a deputy commissioner of police, who is very sincere in his job. Ravi has a trust through which he used to help the children suffering from heart ailments and other diseases to provide treatment. Once Viswa's daughter Saroja gets kidnapped.  On the other side of the coin, there are four friends, who include an artiste in a TV serial. One of the four youths (Vaibhav) falls in love with their common friend Kaajal (Kaajal Agarwal), but the latter tells the same guy that she loves the TV serial hero. So, the man decides to sacrifice his love for the friendship sake. So, he himself broaches the alliance and the TV serial hero and Kaajal gets engaged. After the function, the four youths decide to go to Hyderabad from Chennai to watch a cricket match and on their way, they get stuck in a traffic jam. So, they try an alternative route and lose the way. They accidentally hit a man near a factory and he identifies himself as a police officer and tells them to get out of the place. However, they try to save him first and some goons reach the spot and kill the policeman. Now, the youth's life falls in danger. How the youth escaped? Is there any link with the goons to Saroja's kidnap? Did the youth help Saroja to escape from the kidnappers? What kind of help Ravi does for Viswa? Did really Ravi help Viswa or help the goons? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax. 

PERFORMANCE:

Srihari played a tough cop's role in the film and his character had different shades all through the movie. In the climax his positive role gets a negative shade which is the principal twist in the movie. Prakash Raj once again excelled in his role and dominated everyone in the flick. Though there are four heroes, they had very less chance to perform as the director made them to run all through the film in a hide and seek kind of game. Kaajal, though appeared very pretty, had a very brief appearance on the screen. Nikhita, who had an image of girl-next-door, appeared in a romantic and sexy role for the first time on the Telugu screen. But for the performance of Srihari and Prakash Raj, the film has nothing much to talk about 

TECHNICAL:: 

The director's ability in taking is worth watching. The film moves with quick changes in the scene and the audiences get confused to understand what was going on the screen for some time. It reminds the audiences of Ram Gopal Varma's kind of films who also used to puzzle the audiences here and there. Camera by Shakti Saravanan is excellent and the camera movement, especially with most of the film shot in the dark atmosphere, and the heroes running here and there. The colour gradation in the titles, in a song and in certain scenes are worth watching. Neither the dialogues nor songs by Vennelakanti are worth mentioning. However, Yuvan's music is good in re-recording part. 

REMARKS:

Mere technical brilliance in bringing out a film would not help for the success of the film. The director should also concentrate more on providing a good comedy, because entertainment is the basic need for a film. Comedy by Brahmanandam failed to tickle the funny bone of the audiences. In the absence of comic relief, the film with haphazard movement could not attract the audiences. With an exception to the performance of Srihari and Prakash Raj, the film had nothing to boast of. One need not feel bad for ignoring this movie. 

Cast: Srihari, Prakash Raj, Vaibhav, SP Charan, Kaajal Agarwal, Nikhita, Brahmanandam and others 

Credits: Dialogues and lyrics – Vennelakanti, Music – Yuvan Shankar Raja, Camera – Shakti Saravanan, Producer – T Siva, Screenplay and direction – Venkat Prabhu 

Banner: Amma Creations 

Released on: September 5, 2008