Seetamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu: Preserve This

In many ways the Telugu Audiences deserved and earned Seetamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu with their belief and allegiance to Telugu Cinema. It seems like they are rewarded with one, which is just that. A proper and true Telugu Cinema. Not just because it is a multi-starrer. Oh, it is just an icing on a delicious cake.

SVSC offers rich and detailed insights into a middle class joint family in a village headed by a compassionate father, a dutiful mother and two brothers who could not be more opposite to each other than the two poles. However, it is the love for each other that binds the family together though no one is very vocal or dramatic about it. It is with the simple moments of this family’s journey through their quirks and inflated egos, Srikanth Addala delivers his message that humanity thrives on its inherent benevolence and the differences we have with each other in our daily lives should not stop us from helping each other in need.

Its ensemble with their stellar performances and belief in the director’s vision help the film hugely. Venkatesh brings in a lot of credibility and respectability to his underwritten role, which requires him only to sit and grimace for extended periods of time but when it matters boy, does he deliver. The scenes of his bonding with Mahesh and the camaraderie they share are likely to be etched in our minds for a long time. Anjali gets a meaty role and to her credit does not ham despite her rough edges. Jayasudha is a natural and her performance is a given but it is Prakash Raj who sticks out as a sore thumb. He is just not Tu-Go-Ji’ish enough to pull off this one. Samantha plays the girl friend and she appears star struck in the role and befittingly wins her trophy man towards the end.

But, the film most certainly belongs to Mahesh Babu who puts in one of the best performances by a leading man in Telugu Cinema off late. He has mastered the dialect and understands the demands of his role while appearing to be supremely confident with the material he is given to work with. Words fail and awe does not suffice in praise of his portrayal of the younger brother who stares at, reasons with and goads Venky (elder brother), flirts with Samantha (girl friend), acts playful with Rohini Hattangadi (Grandmother) and completely honest with Jayasudha (Mother). He is totally effortless with his one-liners speaking of which, they seem to have written a 1000 of them and decided to use the top 999 in the film. They added the last one too as an afterthought.

Anyone versed with Srikanth’s characters would know that he deals with people whom we can easily identify or run into in our lives. Here we face them in form of relatives, who try to know what you are up to without any real interest in it, a devious uncle and his son to scorn at your lack of wealth, kids trying to act more than their age to garner and the regular good-man to complete the experience.  In short the village atmosphere is created most authentically with a loving eye towards the paraphernalia. 

All of this is not to say that it is a perfect film, but it certainly is one that gives you something to carry home with. The flaws are mainly with its duration and the second half in particular which seems to be a repetition of all we saw in the first half. In it’s attempts to be simple, it comes across as naïve case in point being the Google Interview faced by Mahesh Babu where the panel asks him to smile from his heart.  A couple of unfortunate songs pop up which may test the patience of the audience and the music is not particularly great either.  Another minor squabble I had with the film is that all the women in it are surprisingly willing to be taken for granted by the men and seem to be enjoying it, but it is all done in good spirit.

A great endorsement of family values for our future generations. A Must Watch. 

Naayak: Formulaic

What does (a+b)² mean to you? Well, that’s Nayak for you. There goes one spoiler. Damn.

Even if I give away the entire plot with all the twists, chances are that you will still go ahead and watch the film. You might even come out enjoying it because the story is not the point at all. It is about how the whole works as a package and how faithfully Vinayak adheres to the success formula, which he had created himself. Going by the number of times he manages to tickle the ribs, one should say he has done well.

Nayak should not be judged on its intelligence because it is to miss the point completely. CCTV cameras record videos in HD, CBI officers drink on their duty and none of them have ever heard of any terms like DNA or fingerprints and the works. Its agenda is to make you laugh, laugh more and laugh harder. The film can boast of great performances by the support cast in eliciting guffaws through out its entire runtime. For a change it is Posani that spearheads the comedy track, Brahmanandam is his usual self and JP continues what he has done in Krishna. Together they make the film a fun-ride, one that you won’t mind despite its dangerous obsession with chopped limbs and severed legs. 

Ram Charan has done only four films prior to this but unfortunately he doesn’t have to do anything he has not done before. Kajal Agarwal and Amala Paul together have lesser screen time than Fish Venkat that is excluding the songs. If you include them, they come close. That does not seem a bad idea at all given how poorly their characters are written (or not written at all).

V V Vinayak looks uninterested in directing the action sequences but he gets his act right with the generous amount of comedy. The visuals are surprisingly tacky for such a high budgeted film and they could have certainly gone easy on that fish eye lens. Production design in Kolkata episodes is awful. All the songs are bad with special criticism reserved for Thaman’s Subhalekha Rasukunna, which is a brutal, terrible, Tarantinoesque murder of Ilaiya Raja’s classic.  

All in all a film which is targeted at the masses and plays it up to the galleries with numerous references to other stars in the family. There is not much to dislike and the film itself does not have any illusions of greatness.

Nothing to write home about. Ahh..well. 

Table No 21: Not a great start to the Year

Table No 21 is neither as intelligent and imaginative as Slumdog Millionaire nor as cheesy and tacky as Soham Shah’s Luck, two of the recent films that centered themselves on reality shows. But it does not sit comfortably midway either.

The plot starts as a couple struggling with their relationship get a chance to spend a vacation in Fiji. Soon learn it is a part of an elaborate plan with things getting dark and grimy when they find themselves being a part of a game that can give them 21 Crores of Rupees. Paresh Rawal is at the helm of the game, controlling it and manipulating the couple. A grim looking young man with stubble who doesn’t have any purpose except showing himself at convenient moments aids him.  There are many references to the number 21 and not all of them are great except the last one at the ending credits.

Make no mistake, Table No 21 is a film with noble intentions but for a thriller the writing is a bit too lazy and the plot takes its time to get going.  The twist at the end which is closely guarded through out with red herrings planted does not come across as disturbing as it is desperate to. The dialogues are no great shakes either with “If you lie, you die” being repeated every time they want Rawal to sound menacing. Rajeev Khandelwal tries his bit but finds it difficult to make us empathize with him. The writers don’t do him any favors either with a poorly etched role. Paresh Rawal is a veteran but here he just goes through his motions and is never quite the delight he ought to be. Tena Desae wears a bikini, shaves her head but her she can't act or kiss good.

There are a couple of songs at the beginning and the end, which hamper the narrative but are forgettable otherwise. Background score is conspicuous by its lack of impact. The film is shot at Fiji but it could as well have been Ramoji Film City and Goa since the locales of the place are never explored.

The best use of Table No 21 could be to serve as a warning for all of us not to fill all those forms that are thrown at us in various shopping malls promising exotic trips. Now that is a worthy lesson. So it’s not so bad after all is it?

Dabangg 2: Fight, Dance, Repeat!!!

Clearly Dabangg2 is not a film for people who read or write stories. Clearly Dabangg2 is not a film for people who read or write reviews. Heck, Dabangg2 is clearly not a film for people who read or write at all.

For those of you who crib that Salman Khan no longer ‘acts’ in his films I recommend watching Dabang2. He doesn’t even do his steps here. His belt sways itself automatically to ‘Hud Hud Dabang’. Now if that doesn’t tell about the star I don’t know what does.

With Chulbul Pandey’s mother and bothersome father-in-law safely out of way in the original, we no longer have the need to be concerned about what happens to anyone. Sure, we know the baddies get killed, the wifey gets her share of kisses and songs, the father is content and happy listening to the heroics of his son and the brother is only too willing to be ignored. So what we are left with are the antics of the actor having so much fun himself and delivering some of them to us too.

The story is such a joke that had Arbaaz Khan heard it himself, he would have laughed to his heart’s content. Pandeyji has now transferred himself to Kanpur and is busy saving children from goons there. But as we all know the world does not let a man do his aviator tricks and pelvic thrusts in peace does it? So we have Bacha Bhayya (Prakash Raj) and his two brothers. Why three you may ask. It is simple. One to get killed in the first half and the other who has some political ambitions to be killed in the second half. You did not think Salman Khan needs to get his shirt off to fight Prakash Raj. So we have the third beefed up brother to facilitate the climax act. Gotcha?

This is a Salman Khan film and no one messes his party for him and this applies for decent artists too. Deepak Dobriyal learns it the hard way when his head gets twisted for putting in a competent act. People are equal in number whether he wants to kill them or shake a leg with them dressed impeccably in formals. Believe me, all of it is so entertaining that the first half breezes away even when it has no real story to connect these acts and you are not even guilty of enjoying it.

So folks, that’s about it. Go and Watch Dabang2 because “Chulbul Pandeyji aapka Manoranjan Karenge”

Aate Hai.

Talaash: Say No to Cheese

Talaash is a great film made out of an absurd story and it is not necessarily a good thing to happen. The much-hyped twist at the end might live up to it in terms of its shock value to find its presence in  an Aamir Khan film but it is certainly out of place. It is surprising to see how everyone decided to play along when the bluff was so easy to call and to think that they have made one flawless film out of this insanity is difficult to chew.

It is a tempting thought to call Talaash a film-noir since it evocatively checks most of the boxes of the genre. But the generous amount of cheese its script is peppered with and the leisurely pace with which the plot unfolds bring down what could have been a decent tribute to the genre.

The film is consistently watchable thanks to the ensemble both on and off the screen. Kareena and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are the standout performers and the later in particular adds an altogether different and interesting perspective to the plot. Aamir plays the role of the cop with his usual earnestness but Surjan Shekhawat is not one of his memorable roles since the character is neither likeable nor layered enough to follow. He asks all the questions in the movie but forgets or conveniently ignores the most important one. The logic of the script. Rani is a natural and seems to be at home playing Roshni who does not resort to theatrics to make her point. Mohanan’s cinematography gives the film the desired moody feel and Ram Sampath’s background score manages to hook you to the proceedings. As we noted earlier, this is indeed a brilliant ‘film’ if one has to go by the true definition of cinema.

There is a scene in the film where Surjan Shekhawat contemplates what might have been his son’s fate had he chose to act differently on that fateful day. Perhaps the film’s current ending is one of those choices (the wrong one, even in the film) made by the writing team. Perhaps there was a better ending to the tale that was not shown to us which would have been more fitting. With a couple of smooches and tackier visuals, this one would well have been Raaz 4 or Jism 3.

To sum it up Talaash is Travis Bickle trapped in a film-noir only to be bailed out by the Bhatts.