Rating: 6/10 (Once for Gopichand)

Cast: Gopichand, Catherine Tresa, Hansika Motwani, Mukesh Rishi, Nikitin Dheer, Annapurna, Chandramohan, Bithri Sathi, Vennela Kishore, Ajay, Sachin Khedekar, Tanikella Bharani

Story-Screenplay-Dialogues-Direction: Sampath Nandi

Producer: J Bhagavan & J Pulla Rao

Banner: Sri Balaji Cine Media

The intense actor, Gopichand Tottempudi's last release was Soukhyam back in 2015. After a gap of 1.5 years, he is finally back with his latest outing Goutham Nanda, directed by Racha fame Sampath Nandi. Does the film live up to the expectations? Let's find out

Plot: When two lookalikes named Goutham Ghattameni (Gopichand) who is the son of a billionaire businessman and Nanda (Gopichand) who lives in a lower middle class slum in Hyderabad meet each other, they decide to swap lives for 30 days and take each others place. What happens next forms the rest of Goutham Nanda.

Performances: After a long gap, it's nice to see Gopichand back on screen. And as expected, Goutham Nanda is Gopichand's show all the way and he is excellent. He is subtle as Goutham but his true acting capabilities come out as the cunning Nanda. After a long time, we get to see shades of the actor who portrayed villain-ism so ruthlessly in Varsham and Jayam. His styling is excellent and he delivers a superb performance.

Catherine Tresa is hot but the director should focus more on her acting potential than accentuating her curves in a bikini. There's nothing much to talk about in terms of performance. Hansika Motwani has another useless role of just being there and it's hard to believe a girl so fair would live in a slum.

Vennela Kishore and Bithri Sathi's comedy is alright. It's Sathi that definitley evokes more laughs with his trademark Telagana dialogues.

Mukesh Rishi and Nikitin Dheer perform routine villainy we have seen a thousand times. The reason for trying to take down Goutham seems farcical in my opinion.

Chandramohan still has the power to make you sympathize with him in middle class father roles after all these years. Sachin Khedekar is miscast as Goutham's father.

Direction: Sampath Nandi is known for his mass masala formula and mixing in sentiment and flashbacks to evoke sympathy from the audience. In this film, he uses Nanda's family as sentiment to evoke sympathy. And it's a hit or miss. The director was trying to convey the message that absolute lust for money corrupts and will consume you and tried to show that through Nanda's character. The concept was very good but one feels the execution wasn't there. While the hero's characterization is excellent, the rest of the characters make no impact. Nanda's family episodes while albeit heart touching, only add to the run-time and the director could have gotten to the point quicker. Also, Sampath Nandi seems to have lowered the entertainment factor here. In Racha and Bengal Tiger, we had some hilarious comedy episodes but there are none of those episodes in Goutham Nanda. The film is a bit low on entertainment and this works against the movie. Besides extracting a superb performance from Gopichand, Sampath Nandi fails to deliver this time around and it makes for an average film.

Technicalities: Music and BGM by Thaman is pretty good. Cinematography by Soundar Rajan is phenomenal. The photography in this movie is simply beautifully due to excellent production values. Editing by Goutham Raju is ok. Some of the Nanda family episodes could have been chopped off to make things crisp. Dialogues by Sampath Nandi are good. Art by Bhrama Kadali is fabulous. The sets look grand and rich. Fights by Ram-Lakshman are decent and add the necessary masala to the film. Production Values by Sri Balaji Cine Media are extravagant. This is one of the most grand looking films to come out in recent times and every frame is clearly dipped with big bucks.

Positives: 

+ Gopichand

+ Production Values

+ Concept

Negatives: 

- Villains

- Overdose of Family Episodes

- Entertainment Value

Analysis and Final Take: Goutham Nanda had the potential to be a great message to the rich folks in society. But one feels that director Sampath Nandi has failed to stick that point.

While the idea of making a commercial entertainer entails having the correct amount masala to work, it is also a good idea to forego some of those elements in order to nail down a specific point.

For example, you can forego the comedy if you can convincingly tell the story in a gripping manner. Or you can forego sentiment in the name of comedy or vice versa. Long story short, one should take a few shortcuts when making a commercial entertainer to make it more appealing and gripping. While the concept is excellent, one would feel the execution is below par.

Sampath Nandi has chosen to include both comedy and sentiment which really don't work in the films favor.

The film opens up with Sachin Khedekar as a billionaire businessman and then Gopichand as Goutham immediately enters with the superhit song Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. After he gets a reality check, he proceeds to indulge in some idiotic activities and almost dies until he meets Nanda. Nanda's flashback is a bit dull but heartwarming at the same time to see that he has such a caring family.

The story turns interesting afterwards but after a series of events in the 2nd half, one could predict the twist. The movie really has no entertaining episodes or brilliant moments and lacks any real twists to keep the audience guessing. A story like this needs a fast paced narrative or entertaining episodes to keep the flow going. Sadly, the film really doesn't have any. Director Sampath Nandi, who usually produces good entertainment delivers his least entertaining film in Goutham Nanda.

The villains are also poorly written and also appear more like caricatures than villains.

Despite all it's shortcomings, the movie is held together by it's lead star Gopichand. His flawless performance and variations in the two characters of Goutham and Nanda save the film and make it watchable. Add the excellent cinematography and grand production values to complement his performance.

Overall, Goutham Nanda is a commercial film that had an excellent concept but is marred by an overdose of emotional scenes and low entertainment. You can watch it once for Gopichand's flawless performance.