Introduction:
When I first saw the teaser, I
was surprised to see a movie based on 'Village Adoption' which isn't really a
fancy material, and that too really quick (Village Adoption is a philanthropic
program, started only in 2015. Not much popularized really. People knew about
it. But you know, not much.). So I really expected promising story line and novelty here. I believe that Khaleja
(2010) movie revived Mahesh in a good way (Even though the movie failed
commercially). He's been craving for some freshness in his movies since then.
He did, 1-Nenokkadine, SVSC hoping to offer something new, which
is really appreciable. But with the movie '1-N..' giving disappointing
result (fair enough!), he quickly shifted gears and wanted to get away with
another mass masala hit like Dookudu (2010), so teamed up with Sreenu
Vaitla again for Aagadu (2014) which turned out to be a Huge Disaster.
It's bad for producers, but not so much for Mahesh. It put him on right track now with this movie &Bramhotsavam
(2016) on the line and I'm only expecting good things from the latter.
Description: (Although Srimanthudu
isn't really rich enough to afford any spoilers :( Avoid this if you haven't
watched the movie)
Movie opens with traditional
title cards, quickly followed by a traditionally traditional introduction song
with Harshavardhan (Mahesh Babu), son of Ravikanth (Jagapathi Babu) celebrating
SriRamaNavami, with a really splendid looking background there (for a employers
colony celebration). Now 'Rama Rama' is a beautifully pictured song with
relatable lyrics, representing similarities with Harsha's character, but
remained as a mere introduction song. (Could've made a great pre-climax song.
But don't worry we have a 'Dimma Tirige' dance song there with totally
meaningless lyrics.) So, our Harsha is not just a Srimanthudu (Wealthy Man),
but one with a kind heart and helping nature, still figuring out his life. Then
Harsha meets Charusheela (Sruthi Hassan) who is seriously trying to avoid
getting fat by helping her native village. She..she's trying to help her
village. So she is studying some Rural Development related course. Harsha likes
the idea of helping the society and the benefit of being slim as well. So he
joins her college (conveniently, college admissions were open throughout the year,
so that Charu and Harsha could be classmates). Harsha is a multi-tasking
intelligent kid who dances for romantic duets, while studying seriously enough
to draw EG drawings successfully (THAT is some difficult sh*t) and be able to
design constructions later on.
Suddenly, a bad businessman
with a bad father (He himself said so..) threatens Harsha's father about some
business tender (forget it.) Now Harsha comes to rescue. How innovatively
Harsha deals with this problem, left me awe-struck (also with a facepalm).
While this is happening here, there are some serious problems bothering the
village, Devarakota. Narayana (Rajendra Prasad) is a good man who tries to help
village people by actually doing nothing. In the same village, there is Sashi
(Sampath) , one more bad businessman. He troubles the village in every way.
He's born that way. The village situation is somewhat like the Bali village
from Khaleja, keepingcount of people still living there while suffering
from bad businessmen. Now by a great coincidence, our Harsha's native village
is also Devarakota, so as our Charu's and also their friend Apparao's (Vennela
Kishore). And there is another big coincidence that the bad father of first bad
businessman is brother of the second bad businessman (Of course!). So basically
everyone is from Devarakota. World is small, like Harsha said.
So our Harsha sets off to
Devarakota on a stylish bicycle, but gets tired & takes a bus later. On the
way there is some serious twist, that I badly want to reveal. So, here the bad
father's son wants to find Harsha and kill him who is travelling in a bus. So
he stops a bus to find a guy, but boom! he is not Harsha. Audience shocks,
Koratala Siva rocks. If you're shocked, don't worry there is a quick flashback
to explain (Seriously!). It was some other guy they want to kill, travelling in
a bus same day, same time but, from Devarakota. Normally remote villages have a
single bus to and fro. Anyhow, Harsha in the other bus, to Devarakota at same
time, comes to rescue. The coincidences keeps coming, huh! So there is some
anti-gravity fight next and it's Interval.
You've seen half of the film,
but you have barely scratched the surface. It's time to get into some serious
sequence of coincidences. So, Harsha reaches the village, starts clicking some
pics for his Facebook. Coincidentally, at the same time, some lady stumbles
carrying water from a faraway river. She's doing it for many days. But she felt
weak on this fine day. Harsha, as usually goes to help her and takes her home.
But there is some jobless old man sitting there. When Harsha asks, "Why
would you let the lady go that far, for water?" He starts tattling all his
family troubles. (Come on, man he was just making conversation. You don't have
tell your whole story.) Harsha takes a nap at a temple, and the kind priest
there takes him to our Narayana, who gives Harsha free accommodation (in
Harsha's own house, FYI). So then, his friend Apparao visits the village,
coincidentally, so that we have a comedian there.
So HERE, the whole Village
Adoption thing starts to happen (Finally!). Harsha starts to build schools,
roads with all the knowledge, he gained from his college, which I believe he
didn't attend more than a semester, or even less. With all these renovations
happening, Sashi is not pleased, but coincidentally his father wants some
development to happen in the village(?), not district or anything, just that
village, so he can save his MP seat. But later, Harsha destroys a liquor stall
and gives a straight warning to Sashi and his hefty sidekicks. Sashi is just
pissed off, so kidnaps Charusheela. Guess what? Harsha comes to rescue. He
performs another fight, where he kicks all the brawny goons into the ground.
Even though they all look muscular than any WWE wrestler, bites dust with one
punch each, and Harsha doesn't break a sweat. With all kinds of mess happening
in the village, Narayana's brother, upon pressure from his wife, had to leave
the village like many, to live with his son, living in the city. Harsha goes to
convince her and did he ever failed?. Okay, that was a good scene, relatively.
Now Charusheela is happy with Harsha's machismo + kind heart, commits to him
(It's about time.) So they go build a colorful set and starts dancing to a sick
beat.
My god! This is never
ending. I'm getting tired. Okay, Harsha
starts to fight for a illegally occupied river, but there lies a danger and
Harsha gets stabbed (Finally, someone was able to get through his sphere of
heroism). He gets hospitalized in the same hospital he renovated, by the same
doctor he brought there. Life is a beach :'( Some serious sentiment scenes
follow. It gets all emotional and heart-touching, you'll start crying like a
baby. (Not really, I'm Just Kidding). The sentiment scenes are not at all
harmful. You won't feel involved at all. Now Harsha upon his father's request,
goes back to the city and takes over his dad's business. Now THERE is some
conflict. Harsha, trying to compromise with his life and pickup something he
never wanted to do. Here our director, skips possibly touching scenes and
brings our Harsha back to the village. We're sitting there thinking like, why
the hell he went home, in first place. In the end our Harsha KILLS everyone and
ends it all with a huge explosion. I really didn't expect this movie to end
with a scene of explosion. That was something unexpected.
Script was really loose and
sloppy. There's no scene, you'd wonder what going to happen next. Just flat.
Movie doesn't focus on anything. It neither stress about father-son struggle,
nor the need of saving villages. Instead of developing a novel story around the
theme of Village Adoption, it is simply used as a new plot element in the old
story of son going to his father's village and solving everyone's troubles.
Same old, same old.
The good things about movie
are, Production Quality, Cinematography and Mahesh himself. All the scenes look
just beautiful & parts of it are just magnificent. Mahesh looks youthful
and gives a convincing performance. Basically the whole emphasis was on his
character, and he did his job perfectly. If the narrator had concentrated on
other characters as well, it would have had a stronger character setting. But
unfortunately, that didn't happened and that is why all the emotional scenes
felt frigid and lacked sensibility. DSP hasn't really delivered his best in
this movie. Re-recording was kind of old-school and didn't really helped to
keep one engaged. The movie really suffered from irksome dialogues and, songs
like "Charuseela" and "Dimma Tirige" doesn't really suit
the mood or the characters.
Thing is, in attempt to please
everyone, movie makers are being unfair to the movie itself, adding all
superfluous stuff, leaving the movie, a big mess. Especially, with movie having a
thin story line, it got stretched, to maintain the movie length, and had the
gaps filled with some silly scenes. First-Half didn't have any separate comedy
track, which was good for the story. But in the latter half, they had to bring
in Ali, although he does nothing. And there are a bunch of useless characters
all over the movie like Harsha's brother, god knows why he's there.
I didn't understand why, Harsha
won't address his father with 'Nanna' or 'Dad'.
Was the writer trying to show the emotional gap between the son and the
father. If it is, it makes no sense. How we address our father is something
habitual, like from childhood, right?
Expectation : A cool
family movie with INSPIRING message.
Result :
Disappointment.
Comment :
Could've named "The Great Coincidences".
Overall the movie isn't a bad
movie. It's one of those movies, which starts as a nice idea, but gets messed
up, with all the so-called commercial elements and hit movie formulas
interrupting the flow. Also the story and narration is right out flat & predictable. We've seen NTR's Brindavanam,
Pawan's Attarintiki Daredi and now Mahesh's Srimanthudu. They
seem like a real nice family movie, but actually overloaded with heroism and
strained sentiment. But they gross money, break
records, may be win some awards, as well. After all, the movie is a good
deal for Mahesh, a relief from his back-to-back box-office disappointments. So
with this energy, hope Mahesh will deliver a honest family movie in form of
Bramhotsavam.
P.S. :
It's not మధ్యపానం. It's 'మద్యపానం' అరోగ్యానికి హానికరం. Yup!
Some scenes were really gripping, that I was able to notice, that tiny little
word of advice in the corner.
