“Janata Garage” (Telugu Film Review)

Koratala Siva is a director who believes in making meaningful commercial films with an underlying message. His previous films “Mirchi” and “Srimanthudu” have met with huge success even if the initial response has been slow to muted. What sets him apart from the usual mongrels directing commercial films is the unhurried pace of narration, and honesty in story-telling. Even the audio tracks of his films released have a touch of this honesty. Many times, the audience keeps guessing on the order of songs in the audio CD because the makers juggle the order of songs. But from the film “Mirchi” onwards, Koratala Siva insists the songs on the catalogue appear in the same order they appear in the film – that’s quite remarkable. It is proof of the director’s intent to never cheat you – either by meaningless side-shows or flippant comedy for the sake of it. How does Janata Garage fare? First half of the film sizzles with good romance, towering performances, great songs and impactful scenes. But the second half loses its way after a brilliant scene in a government office starring NTR Jr. and Rajiv Kanakala.

For NTR Jr. the film is one major step in the right direction – of moving away from lineage-heavy dialogues and mass-image roles – of becoming a metrosexual, uber cool actor who will pack a punch with subtlety and method acting. He excels in his dances and gives another career-best performance by staying true to the mood of his role as a nature-lover and environmental activist who tames villains. The best part of NTR is he takes a backseat in few crucial scenes to elevate the Superstar Mohanlal wherever he needs to – right from titles (where Mohanlal’s name appears) to the last scene of the film (where again Mohanlal finishes off). In a film with mighty starcast from Mohanlal to NTR to Saikumar to Sachin Khandekar to Samantha and Nitya Menen, rarely do you find the hero’s introduction delayed by 21 minutes after the film starts.

The story is not new: Mohanlal is a self-made repairman who builds a giant garage called `Janata Garage’ in Hyderabad repairing all wheeled vehicles. He also attends to the worries of people and hence the caption “All things repaired here” which brings his troop of men in direct conflict with a billionaire called Mukesh (sounds eerie, right?). NTR, on the other hand, lives in Mumbai with his uncle Suresh’s family pursuing his interests in nature conservation. Destiny and family history eventually brings NTR into the portals of Janata Garage but there are some hidden sources of conflict from within which pull the story. Even though the story is familiar, the treatment and the characters built into the story build it out for a watchable though predictable narrative  - something that is bereft of regular formula stuff.

What pulls down the film is the second half with a heavy dose of violence, an item song (that is avoidable and deplorable) and monotonous. It smacks of lazy writing and momentary lapse in clarity that pulls the graph dramatically lower than the feeling you get at interval time. A lot of ends which could have got tied up in the second half hang out loose – the character of Samantha who cutely tailgates NTR in the first half peters out, Suresh and Sitara who doted on NTR never come back in his life again, the environment activist in NTR who is so vocal in the first half goes to sleep once NTR takes up the causes of JG in the second half…It is things like these which make the 162 minute film a little less savory than a four-course meal, it is okay to skip the desert but don’t take the breads away from the table, the audience may ask. However, what redeems the film is the measured characterisation of the principal and side actors in the film – Mohanlal, NTR, Sachin Khandekar, Unni Mukundan (as Mohanlal’s son), Saikumar, Suresh, Rajiv Kanakala, Ajay and Bhargavi. 

Of all, the surprising elevation comes from unexpected characters like Rajiv Kanakala and the subtle romantic track between Ajay and Bhargavi. Rajiv’s character also elevates the crux of the message that Koratala Siva wants to spread through the film about principled and integrity-based living. Ajay’s characterisation leaves you with a heavy heart. Almost all the rest of the pack from Saikumar, Suresh and Sachin Khedekar make their moments of impact on screen. Unni Mukundan, the Malayali actor who plays Mohanlal’s son stands out with a good performance that shows calibre – there are shades of the film “Shakti” (Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan) in the way his role develops. Interestingly, Sachin gets to dub his own voice in Telugu whereas Mohanlal (who dubbed himself for “Manamanthaa”) borrows another baritone for his role. Of all the roles, Mohanlal’s role is consistent throughout the film – he stays in the zone of a comatose, good Samaritan and can fire up a lighthouse without even a twitch on his chubby cheeks, his eyes have that magical power. Even the way he takes to stunts ought to be a lesson for NTR and other macho heroes – you don’t need to bash up baddies till they crumble like nine pins, you just need a symbolic fight once, the rest is banality. That’s what makes the film a bore in the second half. After a dramatic fight by NTR showing the five elements of nature in a demonstrative fight with the baddies, he keeps using his brawn instead of brain in the second half to tame the villains which dilutes the intensity of the original character – a cardinal mistake.

On the whole, the film dazzles in technical departments – dialogues, cinematography (Thiru), music (DSP) and set design. Thiru’s cinematography is great but if greatness is all about showing “yellow” colors oozing out of every frame, then the eye clamors for more. Music by DSP is just about apt both in the BGM and songs – he uses silence more at crucial screen moments which build a subtle tension in the film. The song, set design and choreography in “Apple Beauty” make it a visual treat to watch with B&W images of fallen motifs from modern wonders of the world. The song showing a nature trek by the hero and the two heroines Nitya and Samantha can ensnare anybody into love for nature and serenity. Had the editing been sharper in the second half, this film would have got a blockbuster status but for that to happen, the excessive stunts, the item song on Kajal (what a waste!) and a few dragging scenes should have got mercilessly chopped. NTR’s twelve minute oration in the Government Municipal office will become the most famous scene in his career and that itself is a paisa vasool scene for me which can rebuild foundations of a moralistic society in a corruption-free India.

Finally, one needs to assess this film differently despite scant comedy, lack of fan-hungry entertainment, incomplete romance or a lousy climax. In the past, class directors used to get atleast a dozen films or more to establish their credentials as makers with a different idiom and style and who are here to stay. Nowadays, the directors get only two or three films to establish what they stand for and how they mould their film templates. Koratala Siva has established himself as a meangingful director in just three films – and despite flaws, deserves praise for making a film worth watching once. NTR Jr. too is directionally moving correctly towards a mass-affluent image and this film underlines that intent one more time after “Naannaku Prematho”. He may have erred on the overall finishing of the plot because he doesn’t have the benefit of a mega family where about half-dozen people hear a script before okaying it with more modifications. But that doesn’t make the film less worthy. It can be watched with family too.

Rating: 3/5

"Brothers" Telugu Movie Review/ "Maattraan" Tamil Movie Review

“Brothers” (“Maattraan” in Tamil) is the dubbed film starring Tamil superstar Suryaa directed by K.V.Anand who made one of the best movies – “Rangam” in 2011. K.V.Anand’s first film is about the rot in media and politics that’s splitting the social fabric. In “Brothers” (“Maatraan”), he takes on a much more advanced topic that’s still being discussed and the jury is still out at Biodiversity summits and conclaves – Genetically Modified Foods. But wait, that is not the basic story. It is more complicated. Its about the bonding between conjoined twins (joined at the hip) both played by Suryaa - who are born after Prof. Ramachandran (played by Sachin Khedekar) performs many experiments in artificial insemination in trying to create the ultimate gene factory – someone who is multi-talented combining the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Ilayaraja, Michael Jackson and seven other people. Sounds absurd, right? Is that all? Its a little more complicated. At the outset itself, despite the efforts by Professor to implant the best sperm bank in his wife’s womb, Surya square is born as conjoined twins much against his wishes. Later, the professor forms a company called Locus Lactos Limited which makes a billion dollar Energy Drink containing milk-related contents. Soon, this energy drink called “Energion” leads the market with over 70% market share causing consternation in competition. It leadis to lot of industrial espionage from foreigners who you gather are actually from Ukraine. Why do these foreigners want to unravel the secret formulae of “Energion”? Its even more complicated. The team from Ukraine suspect that the drink made by Prof.Ram’s company is debilitating the health of the consumers by boosting the energy in short-term but flattening their lives with harmful overdoses of steroids. Or Androids. Who cares?

Our conjoined twins – Vimal and Akhil – sons of billionaire Prof.Ram meanwhile date Kajal agarwal – who is a petite Russian translator who figures out exactly what’s happening with the company and Professor. But by then, Prof.Ram and his criminal gang of overlords in factory intercept and eliminate each one of the so-called spies who uncover the real happenings in the factory – where products are inter-mixed with hazardous substances that kill millions of lives. The shocker in the film comes bang in the middle of the film at interval time – where the father of the conjoined twins hires organized labour to kill the main whistle-blower, his son Vimal. Then, in a bid to survive Akhil, the doctors transplant Vimal’s heart into Akhil so he survives. And later Akhil gets to the bottom of the murky dealings. He takes the help of Kajol to get to the real story in Ukraine which is even more complicated. Then the painful ending of realization by the father and the final confrontation between the father and the son. Phew! Quite a story that, can’t be retold without gulping down the daily intake of water a man requires.

K.V. Anand has actually steamrolled three stories into one story and like the father of the conjoined twins tried to infuse a giant killer of a plot that will be called the mother of all films. There is a story of conjoined twins, which by itself, if allowed to progress smoothly would have been a perfect entertainer. Then there is a story of industrial espionage which looks credulous. And then, there is a story of Genetically Modified foods enmeshed with animal and clinical trials of drugs tested before market release that is poorly researched and misinforms. Allowing the three stories to interact with each other in a simple plot of action and romance is the biggest mistake K.V.Anand has made. The most glaring defect in the story is the weak characterization of father - Prof.Ramachandran played well by Sachin Khedekar. How can a father be so heartless to kill his own sons right from the infancy stage to the stage they begin confronting him? By showing that a father’s sense of mammon-worshipping knows no bounds, KV Anand’s plot is the weakest I have seen in years in the manner of being absurdly wicked against one’s own children. This is why, one feels switched off after knowing the culprit is the father and the one who is massacred is one’s own offspring – it kills whatever emotion is left in the film half-way through. Had the villain been somebody else whom the twins attempt to bring to justice, it would have felt differently and maybe might have been more watchable. The initial sixty minutes of the film where the conjoined twins grow up with an overlapping body part in the hip, go to study and chill and enjoy being together in bath or baseline tennis – all of that sizzles and the audience gasp for more. But once the interval comes and goes, there ends the best part of the film and all the soul in it. The second half bores you with the tedium of the plot that’s already known well before the interval - it reminded me of the same way in which “7th Sense” (“7th Ariyu”) dragged its plot in the second half with monotonous villainy and lack of depth in characterization of the villain. In a bid to make it international (the film has atleast 15 minutes of running time in foreign languages – Russian, et al) the film over-concentrates on the dense and complicated plot without checking for its emotional content, comedy (hardly present and comes like a whiff of fresh air only in the first half).

Why does a father want to kill his own children? How can higher market share of a drink correlate with rising health hazards of children who consume it? How come everybody from Food Inspector to the highest authorities and police turn a nelson’s eye to the frauds perpetrated by the company and nobody detects except competition and eventually family members? What is the connection between a sperm bank and conjoined twins? (It has nothing to do with it. Incidentally, there has been a famous project called Nobel Prize sperm bank project which tried to collect sperm from 100 Nobel Prize winners and make a genius baby but finally the project itself became a damp squib. But that’s an interesting story). What is the most harmful substance in an Energy Drink, lets say Red-Bull? (It is caffeine and not Steroids). What is the connection between Genetically Modified Organisms and the killer product? (Again that is not explained very well by the director who made it more to sound intellectual without explaining the pros and cons of GM foods. This is not just K.V.Anand’s fault – there are several happening directors in Tollywood also who drop jargon-sounding words in the middle of a script just to pander to A-class and balcony seat audiences. By the way, this is not a conclave to discuss GMO etc. but my short take on them is that it is the most misunderstood term almost like 3-D printing - the debate should be more on who owns the seeds etc. and not on the malefic side-effects of Genetically Modified Seeds. BT Cotton seeds since introduction in India have already made India a net exporter than a net importer). There are many questions unaswered. Finally, the director should have researched on Barcelona Olympics 1992 where he says the United Team (ex-USSR republics) beats the USA because of the Energy Drink made by our Professor; it actually beat the US by a mere four medals.

What is the point? My point is that nobody denies cinematic licenses to creative directors to experiment with new genres and present different themes under one roof but why do they do poor homework, play with the wrong emotions and mess up the plot? Why over-complicate? Why not make a documentary on GM Foods or Drug trials instead of making films that suck? The real casualty is Suryaa because this film will definitely disappoint his fans despite his superlative performance as conjoined twins. Showing two different shades as conjoined twins was sheer brilliance and he excels with his all-round talents. He shows class and mass with ease unlike other heroes. Performances by Kajol is average despite huge potential of full-length role. Kajol is becoming predictable as a glamour doll without any new variations. Sachin Khedekar has got a plumpy role and he makes most capital of it after Suryaa, of course. Music by Harris Jayaraj has been good in parts. Since Harris Jayaraj has got a natural proclivity towards incorporating Russian instrumentation in his music, he composes his heart out in a few songs set in the backdrop of the Ex-Russian republics but not many memorable numbers to root for. His BGM is better than the songs but all said, Harris Jayaraj is a gifted composer whose stamp on Suryaa’s career has been most vivid and it follows here too. Cinematography and visual effects have been brilliant and atleast two songs - one starring Isha Sarvaani and another starring the conjoined twins romancing Kajol in Norway were brilliantly picturised. Stunts by Peter Hein have been very impressive. The fight before interval running for over 18 minutes is astonishingly shot with all the roller coaster and speed-revolving trains orbiting at their speeds and a frighteningly risky fight ensues between the twins and the rowdies. On the whole, the movie doesn’t deliver and has lot of mental floss that disengages you from the right mood to watch the film because of wrong emotions, lack of a good romantic track between Suryaa and Kajal. You can give 1.5 for the technical efforts of the director and one more for Suryaa’s masterly effort but afterwards you have to say “Oh My God”. 2.5 out of 5 but not a film that entertains cleanly.