Godfather vs Lucifer: Did Mohan Raja's changes work for the better or worse?

Godfather was just the shot in the arm that Chiranjeevi needed after a debacle like Acharya this year. The Telugu remake of Mohanlal's Lucifer worked big time with the loyal fans of Chiranjeevi and received decent openings in the initial weekend though it hasn't appealed to the tastes of general public the way it was expected to. Mohan Raja adapted and directed the film that also starred Satyadev, Salman Khan, Nayanthara, Samuthirakani, Murali Sharma.

Like any other remake, the curse of the comparison was the biggest disadvantage that team Godfather faced ever since the trailer was out. An aspect that Mohan Raja can genuinely take credit for is how he'd changed the ambience and the treatment of the film and envisioned it as an entirely new product with a different target audience. While Mohanlal's presence was 'valued' in Lucifer, Chiranjeevi is 'celebrated' in Godfather. 

For a change, Chiranjeevi as Brahma doesn't talk much here, but the others only *talk* about him in the entire film. You either belong to his team or you don't -there's no grey, there's no middleground. The most significant change that Mohan Raja brings into the Telugu version is to do away with Tovino Thomas' character in Lucifer - which actually didn't contribute much to the conflict in the original (he only ends up supporting Mohanlal). This ensured that Godfather was more focused with its plot.

In the original, Vivek Oberoi was a step father to Manju Warrier's teen daughter and uses his authority to abuse, misguide the latter. Here, instead of the step-father angle, Satyadev's character is hitting on his wife's sister and the abusive dimension to his role is kept to a bare minimum. Mohan Raja, in a bid to amplify the conflict between Satyadev and Chiranjeevi, restricts the scope of other subplots. He only has two objectives in the film - glorify Chiranjeevi, antagonise Satyadev.

The fact that Mohanlal and Manju Warrier are step-siblings isn't forced down your throat in Lucifer. With Godfather, the layers are not subtle and on-the-face - the makers want to emphasise that Godfather is a 'brother-sister' sentiment film. This simply boils down to the logic that Mohan Raja leaves nothing to the imagination of Telugu audiences. There are also ample instances where Prithviraj brings in biblical references to Lucifer; there are no such ideas with Godfather. 

An interesting twist that Godfather brings is with its climax - where Satyadev dies using the same inhaler through which he'd killed his father-in-law; the idea of poetic justice works better than the original where Manju Warrier tells her brother to kill Vivek Oberoi. The weaklings in both the films is with how the abrupt special appearances of Prithviraj and Salman Khan hamper the effectiveness of the screenplay. 

Technically, Lucifer comes across as a way superior product in comparison to Godfather - watch out for the sequence where Manju Warrier confesses to Mohanlal about the dark truths of her life amidst a barren tree, there's so much that the frame suggests than the dialogue. Mohan Raja is unabashed that he wants to play to the galleries with Godfather and S Thaman's music proves to be his most crucial tool in driving that message across. The background score almost leaves you breathless.

While Prithviraj was paying a fanboy homage to Mohanlal too in Lucifer, he didn't solely view the film as a mainstream star vehicle. The drama is so tactfully elevated that you long for Mohanlal's appearances in the film. In the case of Godfather, the exaggeration dominates every other emotion in the story - it's as if the film was made for everyone to fall at Chiranjeevi's feet. Excepting Satyadev and Nayanthara, every other actor succumbs to the cacophony.