Drona is symptomatic of the disease that has afflicted Tollywood films in general. Producer , D.S.Rao, made this film ONLY because he had the dates of the hero Nitin. He had nothing else. The story, screenplay, direction and songs are just elements that rolled off a mediocre assembly line.

What is it about : Drona is the son of a police officer (Mukesh Rishi) who flees from home (and what a home that is – wonder how police officers have such posh homes) because he is caught misusing his father’s gun. The boy grows to become a well-trained thief who steals the Nizam’s jewels. He then escapes from his evil boss (Kelly Dorjee) and returns to the very home he fled from. Once in, he falls in love with the girl next door, Indu (Priyamani). After the one-too-many formulaic twists and turns (of he how lands up in Kelly Dorjee's camp)that are needed to fill in 2 ½ hours of run time, we have the hero returning the jewels to the government, turning in the baddie to the police, and winning the hand of his girl. In between all these happenings you have the usual dose of 5 songs and 6 fights. And thankfully you have an unconnected but good comedy track from Venu Madhav and Sunil. Nitin shines in patches. His fight sequences are a stretch, but his comic timing is good. His scenes with the cook in the house (he calls him kukka) are really witty.

What is Good : Nitin as Drona has delivered a decent performance. Venu Madhav and Sunil have an entertaining track. Venu Madhav’s spoof on Pasupati ( Ninnu Vadhala Bommali Vadhala) had the audience rolling in the aisles. Apart from this, one really has to search hard for anything that can be termed "good."This might sound really mean – but the villain’s dialogue delivery was (unintentionally) comical. Who dubs for these Bollywood baddies? If Kelly Dorjee can speak Telugu, then rest assured you can speak Latin. Trust me you’ll do better.

What is bad : Where shall I begin? How about Priyamani? If this girl has any acting talent, she has managed to hide it well. But on display was an abundant skin show. Anyways, haven’t we seen that all before? Priyamani better stick to singing. It surely can’t be as bad as her acting. Karun Kumar’s direction is disastrous. He surely did not sure have any screen play in hand. The dialogues seemed to have been (hurriedly) written on the sets. The result shows. In the interests of the audience at large somebody should penalize Karun Kumar for allowing Kelly Dorjee to speak Telugu. It makes you angry watching your mother tongue get mutilated like that. The songs are another bad let down. Not one song is hummable, and you have six of them.

Me Thinks : Stay away from this movie. It is torturously lengthy and boringly predictable. If you want to watch Nitin get a DVD of Jayam or Sye.

Tailpiece: Karun Kumar gaaru, if you want to copy Catherine Zeta Zone’s sensuous glide through laser beams in the movie Entrapment, then pick someone who has a figure like that. Agreed you can’t direct well, but pray can’t you at least cast well?