‘Welcome Obama’ Review: Illogical And Outdated

Cast: Urmila, Rachel, Sanjeev, Bhuvana Chandra, Anantha Sreeram

Screenplay, Music & Direction: Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao

Banner: Sandalwood Media

Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao is back with ‘Welcome Obama’ which hit the theaters today. It is an emotional drama that deals with mother’s love with surrogacy as its backdrop. It has new comers Urmila, Rachel and Sanjeev in the lead roles.

Urmila is a single mother who leads a poor life in a small village. Her daughter is handicapped. Her only ambition in life is to see her daughter walking on her own legs. Rachel is an American who wants to become a mother without pregnancy. She choose Urmila as surrogacy mother. Urmila accepts the offer so that she can meet her daughter’s medical expenses. Rachel doubts that baby in Urmila’s womb might be handicapped and leaves India. But Urmila gives birth to a normal and healthy baby and she names him Krishna. After few years, on knowing that her son is normal and healthy, Rachel comes to India to take her son with her. Rest of the story is to prove the point – ‘Kanna premakante penchina prema goppadi’.

Though it is her debut, Urmila delivered an extraordinary performance as a loving and caring mother. Her minute facial expressions are absolutely perfect. Rachel is okay as a foreign lady who doesn’t care relationships. Sanjeev is decent enough in an important role. The kid who did the role of Krishna is cute. We can’t expect a foreign kid to deliver better than what he did in a Telugu film.

Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao has touched almost all the genres of Cinema. He has super hits, blockbusters and prominent awards in his kitty. But ‘Welcome Obama’ is not expected from a director like him. Though basic plot of the story is fresh, the treatment is obsolete. He extracted great performances from the actors but his script has no soul. There are infinite scenes in the film with no logic. Anantha Sreeram and Bhuvana Chandra comedy episode makes you feel that Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao is still in 1990s. His comedy has become tragedy to the audience. He also composed music for this film. All the songs are good, situational and picturized well. Length is one of the major problem due to the poor editing. 20-25 minutes of the film could have been chopped off. Dialogues, penned by actress Rohini, are weak.

Audience would have felt that ‘Welcome Obama’ is outdated even if it were released a decade ago. It is a case of ‘good story wasted by a bad direction and weak screenplay’. Watch it at your own risk.

Bottom Line: Illogical and Outdated

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