Jayaprada theatre in Chennai was a sight to behold today.The crowd was simply unstoppable with fans dancing on the seats – well forexactly the first five minutes. Then they went relatively silent unsure ofwhether the fight they were watching would get over before the interval breakor not.
Let us leave such unending fights aside for a moment. Iwould like talk about the Devuda song. It has been quite some time since I watchedanything of such quality. Cinematography at its best – excellent cameramovements and some nice steps by the leading man. This song stands apart fromthe rest of the songs – save the last song.
I wanted to write about the songs too. But alas! I don’tremember any of them now. I don’t even remember the leading scenes for most ofthose songs. The film has at least two songs that can be cut easily.
Mahesh had the best lines and the best character sketch inthe movie. Poori Jagannath obviously spent quite a gazillion years working onMahesh Babu’s role. It is a pity then that he didn’t spend an iota of thateffort in sketching the other characters which pass off as merely onedimensional and in some cases – like Venu Madhav and Ali – zero dimensional.
Poori Jagannath’s fascination with totally unnecessaryvillains continue in this movie too. Like songs, two villain roles can besafely cut. Prakash Raj need not be living outside the country. He can verywell be in Indiafor this story. And that would have made things simpler for the viewers.
A few years back, there was a Tamil movie called Run. Itholds a record of sorts in the tinsel world. The comedy track in that movie hadabsolutely no connection with the main thread. The characters did not overlap. Therewere no common scenes. It was just a digital switch between the highway and theparallel dust track.
The comedy track in this movie comes very close to that. Thesad part is that it falls flat. There is something called the Law ofDiminishing Marginal Utility which the director was perhaps unaware of. He kepton barking on the same concept again and again and again and again. By the timethe comedy track entered its climax – viewers in the movie hall were actuallygroaning in frustration.
Ileana – the hourglass lady – A future bollywood prospect –With a figure like that she is not gonna be with Tollywood for long. One of thereasons I was so looking forward to this movie was Ileana. I missed her inDevdas. One of my friends then sent me her photos through email. (Heincidentally liked this movie very much.) I was stumped. I was floored. Iscolded myself for not watching Devdas. When I found that Pokiri had Ileana, Iwas determined to see it at least twice.
Oh but what a disappointment it has been! Ileana sure wasgorgeous. In fact I am all for awarding her the second place after SonaliBendre. However the director failed to capitalize on her craze. She has notbeen presented properly in this movie. I don’t mean that she should expose.There are ways to show a lady beautifully. Take Sneha in Radha Gopalam orBhoomika in Missamma. Those characters stay etched in memory forever. PooriJagannath had the best looking girl in the industry at his disposal. What doeshe do? He resorts to rapid fire editing in duets! Give me a break man. I wantto properly ogle at Ileana. You take her off the scene in like 0.02 nanoseconds.
Let me come back to the fights, the fights that never end.If trimmed properly, these are really comparable to Hollywoodstunts. Breathtaking visualization, cinematography, smooth transition betweenscenes – all wasted because all these keep on happening for an eternity.
This movie has all the ingredients to satisfy the fans.However it has a serious problem. There is absolutely nothing in the movie forthe family audience. There is no romance worth speaking of, no sentiment at alland the action scenes are extremely gory. We have knifes protruding from humanheads. In my opinion this can be a potential threat to the movie after the firsttwo weeks. (That’s when the normal audience start coming to the theatres)
Poori Jagannath should seriously think about where he wantsto place his loyalties. If he wants a slick Hollywoodaction thriller, he should do away with two songs, trim the fights and cut thecomedy track entirely. If he is also looking to satisfy family audience, heshould reduce the violence and build the relationship between Mahesh and Ileanaon a deeper scale with a sustained focus on romance.
As it stands out, cardboard characters are aplenty inthe movie with just one well rounded personality – Mahesh Babu. Fans will behappy. Action movie fans will relish this.