Gautham Nanda – Review

Story:
Gautham Ghattamaneni (Gopichand) is son of a rich business magnate who does not know the feeling of not having anything. On the other hand, in a slum we see Nanda Kishore (Gopichand) who is poor but aspires to die rich. These two persons ‘accidentally’ meet and exchange their places to experience the other person’s lives for 30 days. What happens when the 30 days period ends – do they go back to their respective lives?
 
Analysis
Hero and his doppelgänger (a similar looking person) exchanging their places for a reason is beaten-to-death storyline that has been explored in Telugu cinema from the days of NTR’s ‘Ramudu Bheemudu’ (1964). Numerous movies have come on the same theme. Yet, Sampath Nandi has tried to explore something “new” in this cliched line and has presented us ‘Gautham Nanda’ with Gopichand in dual role.
 
Gopichand must have agreed to do  this movie as this is the first time that he’s getting chance to play dual role, but both Gopichand and his director Sampath Nandi should have ensured that narration and scenes should be different. It is inexcusable to wrap a beaten-to-death story in such a cliched format.
 
The director takes entire first half to establish the lifestyles of two characters and to tell us that they have changed their places. What follows is very tedious. When Gautham has decided to experience what it is to be pained, how it feels to be without food, we expect some emotional scenes but the situations are like straight out of 70’s and 80’s. Today, even below-middle class people maintain good utensils but we get to see them filled with cockroaches. Such stale scenes!
 
The story as well as narration is dreary but the movie has quite rich visuals and production values are top class. 
 
As far as performances are concerned, Gopichand in dual role shines. Both lead actresses have nothing much to do. Catherine is okay. Chandramohan as middle class father and Annapurna as aaya have given their best. Rest have come up with bad acting. 
Cinematography and music (couple of songs) are neat. As director Sampath Nandi fails to impress this time.
 
Bottom-line: ‘Gautham Nanda’ is old wine in old bottle. Although the last 20 minutes are interesting, the film doesn’t make an interesting watch. It is a tiring experience.