Reviews: Toss

Story:

Neelakanta (Upendra) is the elder brother of Naina (Priyamani). Naina is a blind girl who receives great love for her brother. But Neelakanta is a nightmare for police and other goondas. Neelakanta’s profession itself is unlawful. He remains no evidence after committing crime. So there will be no witness to put him behind bars.

Parasu Ram (Raja) is a young guy who aims at becoming a police officer. But his dreams will not be fulfilled. Nisha (Kamna) is the girl who aspires to become a film heroine and is a close friend of Parasu Ram. She has no big role to play than to entertain. He becomes an alternative police man without uniform and catches the criminals and suppresses crime. Commissioner of Police Nayak (Suman) supports Parasu Ram to carry his mission. He asks him to close the chapter of Neelakanta and promises him of offering a job in Police Department. Parasu Ram starts his mission.

Will Parasu Ram achieves his goal? Who is Parasu Ram? Who is Neelakanta and who is Nayak? What is the relation among all these? The narration takes us to climax.

Performances:

Raja changed his look. He is like a macho man with strong biceps and heavily built chest. His role is totally a mass one.

Upendra’s role is typical brother who cares for his sister. He is given a wild appeal and more graphics are used on him to bring depth.

Priyamani is sensuous with saris in a song but in rest of the film she is with her blindness.

Kamna has shown enough of her curvy assets and tried to imitate Urmila in Rangeela.

Ramya’s rough-lady role with sexposure is for glamour quotient.

Comedy track is very dull. Only Venu Madhav’s performance as NTR brings a few laughs. Krishna Bhagwan is not used properly by the director. He would have given more output if right track was given.

Fights are incredible. It’s again technical faculty that boosted up the adrenaline of audiences. Choreography is normal and music is below average.

Priyadarsini Ram’s direction and screenplay is in its confused state. More focus is kept on graphics but not on the purpose of the film and point of conviction. There are many mistakes in narrations.

‘Head’less and ‘Tail’less Aspects of this ‘Toss’:
1. Raja appears as lawyer in one of the scenes and supports prostitution and alcoholism with reasoning. The purpose of the scene is not understood. The total court scene itself is confused.
2. The fight between Raja and a heavily built goonda recalls the Bheema-Bakasura yudhdham in old Mahabharatha films. It has no conviction at all.
3. Upendra’s childhood artiste quenching the thirst of his sister with blood is wild and crude. It does nauseate as well.
4. Upendra’s ball dance with sister is also far from local tradition.
Winning Aspects in ‘Toss’:
1. Graphics
2. Background Score
3. Glamour Quotient
4. Venu Madhav’s imitation like Mayasabha Duryodhana

Ram Reddy or Priyadarshini Ram changes tracks from an offbeat Manodu to a mainstream Toss.

Made entirely in the commercial format, this Telugu film stars Kannada superstar Upendra, Raja, Priyamani and Kaamna Jethmalani.

The film begins with the premise Oka abbadam padi saari nijam ante adi nijam vochu. Kaani oka nijam vanda saari abaddam anna athi abaddam kaadu (One lie uttered 10 times as though the truth can become the truth but one truth even if uttered 100 times as though a lie cannot become a lie).

Not everything you see is the truth and you can't see the truth all the time. It's not mind-boggling as it sounds. Basically Toss looks at who are morally right and systemically right through the eyes of its protagonists Neelakantha (Upendra) and Parasuram (Raja). The police commissioner Nayak (Suman) is another main character.

It's a question of the right side or the flip side -- hence, Toss. Parasuram tosses the coin to take the right action -- an act reminiscent of Amitabh Bachchan in Sholay.

The film has parallel tracks -- of Neelkantha (who is a difficult man to contend with on account of his might) and Parasuram (a good man), which sets the pace for the layered narrative. These two converge in the second half and that's where the suspense element comes in.

The police commissioner and another gang led by Sultan are the other characters in this suspense drama. In the first half of the movie one is led to believe that Parasuram and Nayak are good while Neelkantha is the bad guy, till the toss...

In between there is romance brewing between Parasuram and Naina (Priyamani) which complicates matters, more so because Naina is Neelkantha's sister.

Toss has all the usual elements of a commercial film -- action, romance, revenge, brother-sister sentiment (which is the common theme of most Telugu movies in the last seven months), songs, dances, some enforced comedy et al.

So, in essence, Toss is the usual masala entertainer, albeit a tad too confusing at times. There are some areas which are not conveniently explained (for instance one wonders how Neelkantha becomes rich as he loses his parents and brings up his sister on his own).

The movie is slick, with some good CG work. The fact that the movie was shot in high-definition digital camera helps in the colour correction besides post-production. However, there are distractions in the song-dances and the few enforced comedy sequences.

Upendra looks menacing (thanks to his attire and sound effects) as Neelkantha. Incidentally Toss marks his return to Telugu movies after a long gap.

Raja, on the other hand, performs what is expected of him, and is quite convincing as the goodie who is SET (Self Employed Tax as calls himself).

Suman plays the notorious police inspector with his usual conviction.

The women provide the glamour (particularly Kaamna) and display some amount of histrionics.

Mani Sarma's musical score is in sync with the mood -- the only 'melodious song' being Prema Prema...

All said and done, it's the audience who will decide to flip for Toss or not.

Analysis:

The first half and second half runs with same tempo with the blend of action and cooked up comedy. Interval twist is also not so great.

It appears as if we are watching a Kannada film. The concept of Self Employment Tax is a new idea generated with this film.

On a whole, while vulgarity in dialogues and tidbits of comedy are mass appealing there is no big element that allures the class audiences. The fate of this film depends on the patronage of mass audiences.

This is the film made by Priyadarsini Ram of ‘Manodu’ fame. He attempted a high dose mass masala flick with action part in domination. Will he get fruits with this? That’s doubtful.

indfilmnews.blogspot Rating :

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