After the disastrous “Komaran Puli”, Power Star Pawan Kalyan quickly returns to the silver screen with “TeenMaar”. With this remake of the superhit Saif Ali Khan – Deepika Padukone starrer “Love Aaj Kal”, Pawan Kalyan very very wisely decides to come back with his tried & tested loverboy avatar which gave him many blockbusters earlier.

What’s it about : TeenMaar very simply starts off with Michael (Pawan Kalyan) meeting Meera (Trisha) at a Cape Town disco resulting in them going around but never formally declaring their love for each other. After a year of this casual relationship, Meera decides to go to India to pursue her career and so they amicably decide to split as they are not confident of putting in the effort required in maintaining a long distance relationship. Staying in touch as good friends, Meera and Michael struggle to understand their feelings for each other and continue to deny the existence of a very strong attraction between them. At this juncture, Senapathi (Paresh Rawal) comes into the scene as Michael’s friend who starts narrating Arjun’s (Pawan Kalyan) love story with Vasumathi (Kriti) that happened 30 years back. Complicating the present day love story is the fact that both Michael and Meera have moved ahead with new relationships. The rest of the movie is about how the two love stories unfold with their own set of value systems and contrasts.

What is Good : TeenMaar scores fairly well in terms of the entertainment and emotional quotient thanks to some fine performances, direction, superb dialogues and music. Pawan literally carries the film thanks to his double role that ensures he is there in every scene. His easy-going and confused Michael very effectively contrasts from his characterization of the intense and focused Arjun. Trisha backs him with a balanced performance as the complex Meera who wants and tries to move ahead but keeps fighting her own intentions. She looks gorgeous as the modern girl and her styling is extremely well done. Kriti and Paresh Rawal are adequate in their supporting roles. Director Jayanth mostly maintains the mood of the movie while his biggest support comes in through Trvikram’s dialogues. Trivikram captures the essence of the movie through the casual conversations that occur constantly between the leads without getting melodramatic. Music by Mani Sharma is another plus point thanks to the catchy numbers while the art and cinematography departments make sure that the modern and retro locations stand out.

What is bad: The pace in the second half gets impacted due to the need to play up to Pawan’s star image resulting in a couple of fight scenes and a song. The fight scenes look completely forced into the script to ensure that the power star’s fans are satisfied. The movie also shifts from Cape Town to New York for no strong reason except for a need to have more international locales. Sonu Sood, Mukesh Rishi and Tanikella Bharani are wasted in inconsequential roles.

Me Thinks: The concept of an urbane, contemporary love story with its challenges of commitment phobia and the resultant mixed signals are very well captured. The movie will definitely do well amongst the city/multiplex audiences while not really making any impact in the B and C centers.

Tailpiece: In a movie set in Cape Town, New York, Allahabad, Varanasi and Mysore, we have Telugu speaking people conveniently popping up everywhere…TeenMaar for the global Telugu presence!!!

Click here for Teen Maar Review 1

Click here for Teen Maar Review 3