"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex....It takes a touch of a genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction" - Albert Einstein.When I saw Bommarillu, I thought director Bhaskar was the latter type. But, "Orange" proved me wrong and now Bhaskar falls into the former category. When I first heard about the "Orange" project, I, as a die hard fan of Ram Charan Teja, appreciated his wise decision of trying to do diversified roles. But it is after I watched Orange (first day evening show) that I realised that accepting this role must be one of the biggest mistakes Ram had ever made in his life. Upto the extent of portraying Ram as a lover boy, Bhaskar did really put some thought and his efforts were good. Bhaskar has chosen a sensitive and very relevant topic but, sadly the narration part lost track. He tried to weave a romantic love story with colourful touch, instead ended up failing to give clarity to the hero's role and left the audience confused and clueless. The point of the movie is simple and deals with the conflicts of the contemporary lovers. To my surprise, hero is shown as the playboy who keeps falling in love with many girls without promising commitment. Thus, the confusing characterization of the hero is itself a huge setback to the film. Some good message was tried to pass on to the today's couples but I don't think that the youth will be able to feel or connect with the emotion. Director wasted a really good message oriented script by converting it into a non sensical drama. However, there are some awesome lines and catchy dialogs in the film such as " Samudramanta prema nijaalato undaledu abadhaalato bratakaledu" that give stimulating messages. One point that audience cannot understand how much they think is why the movie was named Orange in the first place. It did not do any justice to the film and there is no reason behind naming the film orange except for that orange being one of the colours used by the hero as a graffiti artist.
The lead actors, both Ram Charan and Genelia put up commendable performances. Ram Charan was etched in a new look with new wardrobe, new body language and entirely new make up while Genelia looked healthy and glamorous but there is no novelty in her work. During the first few minutes even though her chirpy look was too cute, her over action sometimes was loud and irritating whereas in the second half she looked sober. Thankfully Bhaskar carried some good marketing strategy by roping in few popular actors like Manjula (Mahesh Babu's sister) and her real life husband Sanjay as a pair, Happy days fame Gayatri Rao, Prabhu Ganeshan, Madhurima (cameo appearance), Ashta Chemma fame Avasarala Srinivas, Naga Babu, Vennela fame Kishore and Prakash Raj who serve no purpose at all. Among all the actorss, Brahmanandam's role was thoroughly entertaining. Shazahn Padamsee who made a debut in tollywood through this film is looking cute, fresh and pleasant.
The locations were good and colourful. Harris Jayaraj's music in the movie was laudable and the music was a chart buster even before the movie was released. Surprisingly there were no female voices in any of the songs. He gave some best tunes of his career for this film. I even loved the graffiti work in the movie. Kudos to the art director Anand Sai! Action director did a good piece of work by shooting a sky diving fight which was shot originally with Ram Charan without any dupe. Editor's Marthand K Venkatesh's editing and trimming could have been better. Lyrics by Ram Jogayya Sastry, Vanamali and Surendra Krishna were peppy.
Overall the movie ended giving a jerk to the audience. But in the climax, director gives a good message citing that love should never be conditional. But I seriously doubt that the "mega" clan must be contending with each other to give the biggest flop of the year. Hence, finally the orange story which was expected to be of O' range turned out to be a "No range" or "0 (zero) range" movie.
