Trying to glean story from Naa Peru Surya is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. The theme is good, but is bogged down by narration.
The film deals with the protagonist’s conflict with himself, with the biggest enemy being his own anger.
An otherwise great soldier Surya (Allu Arjun) is rendered out of order — read dismissed — by his commandant (Boman Irani) calling him an abnormal human being for his uncontrollable rage after he kills a terrorist held in a cell in their garrison.
But Surya, who has always dreamt of going to the border to fight the enemy as a supreme sign of patriotism, gets a reprieve. He has to control his anger and for this he has to see a psychiatrist, Professor RK Raju (Arjun), who also happens to be his estranged father.
The shrink proves to be a tough nut to crack. He poses Surya a 21-day challenge to keep his anger under control, failing which he will never get the clean chit he so desperately needs to get back into service. All it boils down to is anger management.
The testing times begin with challenges being posed by the villain Challa (Sharat Kumar) and his son. Now Surya is at war with himself for he is his own enemy. The conflict within is should he turn a blind eye to the happenings around him or be his usual self?
He realises his ‘border’ is not on the frontier but within society, and the enemy is all around us.
The film begins with a promise, but soon you’ll realise it is slipping away. To establish Surya’s temperament, he is shown beating all the cops in a police station after they ask for a bribe to hush up the beating of a minister’s son after he acts fresh with a woman in a pub. This scene takes a lot of footage, where bones are broken as if they were just dry twigs.
Anu Emmanuel as Varsha is wasted in a bit role as Surya’s love interest. She is there merely as an adornment. Her screen presence is more in song sequences than help in the progression of the story. And talking about songs, usually Arjun’s movies are well-known for those. I think Vishal-Shekhar should just stick to Bollywood.
Nadiya, as the psychiatrist’s wife, excels in emoting feelings of a mother meeting her son, Surya, 12 years after he left home.
As for Arjun, he looks every bit a soldier and looks convincing in his role. The dialogues are crisp and powerful and the action scenes a bit stretched. But he could do just so much with a script that doesn’t allow much scope for acting.
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Check it out!
Naa Peru Surya
Cast: Allu Arjun, Anu Emmanuel, Arjun, Nadiya, Sarath Kumar, Boman Irani, Sai Kumar.
Direction: Vakkantham Vamsi.
Music: Vishal-Shekhar.
Rating: 2.5.
