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Thursday, August 13, 2015

Srimanthudu

"Telugu movies have come of age. First it was Bahubali and now Srimanthudu," was the line yesterday by, (now I know), a big Mahesh Babu fan.
I had resisted going to this movie as the trailers promised nothing exciting. Yet, I fell for the above line and went today to see this movie, expecting something on the lines of Nenokkadine. The movie began ten minutes late, perhaps waiting for the theater to be filled. But it remained half-empty. This should have tipped me off.
The beginning was a LOUD song and dance sequence in God's prayer, hoping perhaps that the movie works? Sigh! I thought if the beginning is as mundane as this, what do I expect from the movie?
The song and dance over, it was the routine, quickly falling in love with the heroine to meet again and again...fall in love...fall out of love... and then separate when she discovers he is rich and taunts him about knowing nilch about his native village. He leaves for that village which happens coincidentally to be her native village as well.
This is the first half, wasting 1+ hours watching the apathetic romance happen. Before interval, the hero is seen bashing up some gundas and this is a precursor to what's to come.The second half is filled with gunda -bashing and more bashing and then some more bashing and then the film ends.

Some questions:
1. Just because a bimbette tells the hero that he doesn't know about his village, is it an inspiration enough for the hero to leave everything, go to a village, adopt it and take care of its infrastructure?
 2. The hero joins a rural degree college in the middle of the academic year just because the heroine happens to study there but seems more absorbed in study than the pretty lass. So why did he join that college?
3. He also drops out when he wants and implements all he has learnt in the village that he has adopted. Don't know why they have a three-year degree course if everything can be learnt in a few months (or is it days)?
4. The hero is shown helping a poor family get its daughter married . Why this incident , no one knows, as later they make no impact on the story at all.
5. Why does the otherwise good looking Jagapathi Babu have to act as Mahesh Babu's father? Why does he have to have white hair and a white beard when his wife sports jet-black hair?
6. What are the hero and the heroine's mothers (Sukanya and Sithara) doing in the film?
7. Does just rolling out a map of the village mean that you are a civil engineer and are capable enough to plan the village infrastructure?

No plot conviction:
The movie doesn't give enough time for a plot to linger and build. It just fast forwards itself jumping from one incident to another. There is no cohesion, whatsoever.
The audience is not convinced of the hero's motives. The hero himself seems to be just going through the motions and not convinced about what is expected of him in the movie.
The villains haven't done enough evil to get bashed so badly, forget getting killed at the end.
 Lot of characters are introduced with very brief roles, bordering on cameos. And everyone seems to have sleep-walked through the movie.
Mahesh Babu for the nth time, speaks through clenched teeth and bashes up people. He definitely seemed bored of the repeat stuff.
And what's with Mahesh Babu's heavily made-up face. Does he think he is aging or what?

Two bright spots in the movie
1. The reliable Rajendra Prasad, as usual, doing his best
2. The absence of Brahmandam and his clichéd dialog, acting and script.

Just remembered I didn't mention the heroine's name. Uhh...does it matter ?
Go at your own risk, and only if  you have nothing else to do.

Pay heed to what Jagapathi Babu keeps saying in the movie, " Nuvvu emi chestunnavo naaku artham katmaledu, ra."

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