Minutes after he wreaks havoc in a palatial household, Venkata Ramana Reddy (Mahesh Babu) walks away, sits on a garden bench, and has a moment of reckoning. He says the trash that his mother Vasundhara (Ramya Krishna) wanted cleared in minutes was not the expensive crockery or chandelier that he broke but him, the unwanted son. In an earlier scene he states that he will wait until he knows if the mother-son love is one-sided or if she too yearns for him. His question has been answered. The scene hits a raw nerve and is one of the few moments that stand out in an otherwise stale narrative by writer-director Trivikram Srinivas’ Guntur Kaaram, his third outing with Mahesh Babu years after Athadu and Khaleja.
Guntur Kaaram wants to be an emotional family entertainer and a mass/masala film rolled into one. Several Telugu films — including Trivikram’s Atharintiki Daaredi and Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo — have embarked on this path earlier and pulled it off. This film feels like a pale blend of both, garnished with Guntur’s fiery red chillies, hoping the leading man’s fanbase will lap it up.