"Naayak" Telugu Movie Review

“Nayak” starring RamCharan is a sensational winner and a film worthy of duel under the “Sun”kranti. Sankranti is the grand-mother of Tollywood movies and is not for the faint-hearted. Even the best of stars don’t take a shy at the stumps for Sankranti because of the weight of expectations and the stakes riding on the season. It is the equivalent of Diwali for Kollywood and Bollywood, but unlike Bollywood, Tollywood Sankranti separates men from the boys because there will be a clash of atleast two, if not three or four star-studded films. This little intro is for setting the tone for the year and “Nayak” proves to be an auspicious start for Tollywood. It has all the elements of entertainment – a rising star of a Megastar, romance, drama sans melodrama, villainy that justifies heroism, twists in the interval that shakes you up and comedy that is of an unprecedented scale, plenty of action and glamor of two cute heroines – Kajol and Amala Paul. Well-directed by veteran VV Vinayak.

The story is not dramatically different from dual-role stories in which Tollywood has taken a world patent. Set in Kolkata, Cherry is a happy-go lucky software engineer who falls in love  with Kajol. His side-kick is Brahmanandam playing the role of “Jilebi” who bumps into the gang of Rahul Dev and Jayaprakash. In the many romantic twists of the romance between Cherry and Kajol there is another character of Aashish Vidyarthi who is a CBI officer investigating gruesome murders of a goon, a police DIG (think of it!). He thinks it is all the work of Cherry and prepares to nab him next at a pre-announced Kumbh Mela where Pradeep Rawal gets a threat to get killed. At the Kumbh Mela where generally two doubles get lost from each other in olden movies, the bizarre twist that the one who is killing off all the villains is not Cherry, but Naayak, his look-alike. Then a lengthy interval which justifies the violent spree of killing by Naayak of all the guys who wronged him and his brother-in-law’s family. And then the proverbial climax after 160 minutes spaced with six spicy songs, about six to seven slick but needless fights and plenty of comedy from Jayaprakash  Reddy, Posani Krishna Murali, Brahmanandam and MS Narayana.

VV Vinayak is a director who excels in screenplay and story-telling and this is going to be a well-worked out example of his capabilities especially after the debacle of “Badrinath” but what can make his movies a family-draw is an abject reduction of grating violence with sumos, sickles and gunshots. While he has got great narrative grip in giving a story full of twists and flashbacks, he needs to be  a responsible film-maker of family sensitivities and tone down violence. In this film, he inter-mixes a lot of themes from movies like “Tagore”, “Aadi”, “Bunny”(all his films) as well as films like “Sivaji”, “Stalin” and “Businessman”. There are social themes touched upon like child prostitution and child beggary after maiming the children (as shown in “Slumdog Millionaire”). Couple this with violence, and you have a full-blooded “A” certificate. Personally, I feel “A” certificate films mar the fesivity of Sankranti season and should be avoided. But unlike  a movie like “Businessman” released last Sankranti, this film doesn’t have adult-level profanities. What redeems the film from its mediocrities of double-role tamashas seen from the times of “Ramudu-Bheemudu” is the fantastic comedy and entertainment right from the first few minutes. The first fight in a series of never-ending stunts comes only at the fortieth minute so it sets the characters well with the show-stealers being Jayaprakash (this must be his career-best), Posani Krishna Murali (he steals the show in second-half). Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav and MS Narayana have not get the better deal in this film and atleast their characters are not etched out to milk their potential. Ramcharan looks very stylish and “Orange”cool throughout the film and even the mass role of “Naayak” looks classy for him, he probably had the least dialogues in the film as a hero compared to all his previous films. But he proves a point again, that he can dance as well as his dad and his cousin Allu Arjun. All the songs carry  a signature step and a classy twist of a leg. There are so many others dominating in this film that Charan’s space comes only in the songs and fights a few one-liners with  the villains and Kajol. Both Kajol and Amala Paul look passable despite their skimpy clothes and sizzle in the navel. Kajol looks jaded and Amala Paul is guilty of horrible makeup; her lipstick and dressing sense has gone haywire. Aashish Vidyarthi, Kota Srinivasa Rao make their mark in their respective roles. Music by Thaman gives the classy feel to the mass numbers in the album with one song starring item girl Charmmee quite a foot-tapping number. The song remixing “Shubhalekha Raasa” (“Kondaveeti Donga”) is well-shot in Iceland but the song’s interludes are outright copied from the original song by IlayaRaja. I thought the interludes by IlayaRaja have given an iconic status to the song but by copying it fully right through the notes, Thaman  disappointed us. What is the meaning of a remix then?

On the whole, the film is marred  only by excessive violence but carries the day for some extraordinary entertainment and good songs and convincing performances by the entire starcast. Tollywood has patented few themes for eternity and ATM-cash-withdrawal from the box office. Examples, “Yamudu” theme, “Dual Role and sometimes triple role” themes – lost and found kind, “Shakespearan themes” of Taming the shrew/Comedy of errors/King Lear/Macbeth/All’s Well that ends well kind. The dual role concept is given an exhilarating treatment by VV Vinayak who should take a bow with this film. But for the violence in the film which extends the film by atleast 20 minutes, I subtract 0.5 and give the film an above-average 3 out of 5.

R.I.P Balasaheb Thackaray

Balasahab Thackaray shares his surname with a famous English novelist (William M Thackeray) who in turn shares his first name with the world’s most famous playwright (William Shakespeare). I firmly believe that Balasaheb’s life is an interesting mixture of half a dozen Shakespearan plays and “Vanity Fair” written by the original Thackaray. He commanded a following that shames the twitter following of Dalai Lama or the facebook friends of Mark Zuckerberg and definitely commands more silent followership than the likes of Puttaparthi Sai Baba or any film celebrity. He has achieved a cult status that’s colossal and unassailable in many many years for now - because of his nationalistic fervor, unrivalled outspokenness and a Zionist love for India that’s at once messianic and heart-warming. Balasaheb was the final authority when it comes to anything that concerns Indian pride and self-respect and carefully used pulse-points that created euphoric waves of opprobrium whenever India’s masses were vulnerable to mass hysteria to do his bidding – whether it was playing a cricket series with Pakistan, Sania marrying a Pakistani, Sanjay Dutt’bail or Salman Khan’s behavior, Amitabh’s exit from politics after Bofors, or whether national security laws kept a vigil on terrorists. What Balasaheb bade was final, and woe betide anybody who went against. Balasaheb had achieved all this with a hysterical mass following outside the reaches of Sadgurus and Superstars and led an interesting life that had enough contradictions that can trigger a few hundred Bollywood films (infact many were inspired by him). There will be lot of questions that intrigued biographers and journalists always – Was he really a catnip? Were all the finest femme fatales deflowered at his bidding? Why did he favor Telugus over Tamils in the famous tirade against non-Marathas? Why was he such a mad fan of Hitler and how much of Zionism influenced his “anti-immigration policy”? What led to the parting of his nephew and the death of his son? If he was so strong, how did so many Satraps shoot up even at the peak of Shiv Sena’s meteoric rise like Sharad Pawar and Pramod Mahajan? Has Mumbai moved on during the last five years or so because of anachronistic anti-immigration stance adopted by the Shivsena? All said and done, it was a life more colorful than the most larger-than-life figures seldom seen in world history. Bal Thackeray commanded a premium right till his end and had he stuck to his calling of a caricaturist like RK Laxman who shared his desk at Free Press Journal or confined to writing “Burning Words” like Babu Rao Patel, Bal Thackaray wouldn’t have been a phenomenon as the world knows him today. We all aspire to live interesting lives. Bal Thackaray had a cracker of a life from the time he was out of the womb. Balasaheb has been the only voice outside of Congress who lent credence and vitality to every world view that mattered on foreign affairs, diginitaries visiting India across the fields, whether we should encourage multi-culturalism and what is good for our security. We should be thankful for Balasaheb that but for him and Sushma Swaraj, we would have had a foreign citizen Sonia Gandhi as a Prime Minister. History always had a place of honor for fierce patriots like Savarkar and Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Prithviraj Chauhan – Balasaheb built a business and political empire out of nationalist fervor and zeal that sometime bordered on the theatre of the absurd. May his soul R.I.P.

London Olympics 2012 - The Empire Strikes Back!

London Dreams woke me and my wife at 1.20 pm yesterday night. It was definitely worth a watch. The opening ceremony of 2012 London Olympics was smashing and stylish and proved to be a recession-free demonstration of everything that is British - that strikes a chord in colonial cousins in India or anywhere else they ruled for 200 years. I liked the whole theme engineered by Danny Boyle - the man behind "Slumdog Millionaire". He has chosen the most enduring British Icons that stood the test of time and created a brilliant, concise, ravenous and thoroughly stylish ballad thats almost putative to the viewers at large. The stiff upper lip, the sophisticated humour ( I dare not use "humor" here), the organised rehearsals behind those generous expressions and the general sense of Old world British Pride was all there in PDA format (Public Display of Affectation of being an Imperialist). Everything was precisely spick n span, prim n proper.

I can sense a lot of reading and meticulous brainstorming went into the selection of the icons and idioms that flowed after one another starting with River Thames, Origins of English people across Ireland/Scotland/Other "shires", Birth of the English language, Lord Nelson, William Shakespeare, Magna Carta, the unrivalled British Navy (which ruled the sea shores since Napoleon was defeated), the Industrial Revolution, British Royalty, Cricket, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Humprey Boghart, Peter Pan, Harry Potter, James Bond, members of Beatles, Eurythmics/The Queen (Annie Lennox), British Queen Elizabeth, the movie industry here - call it BAFTA or Lollywood (London's Hollywood). The juxtaposing of Mr Bean with London Symphonic Orchestra was almost magical and rhapsodic. Loved the scale and the execution of all things considered British at the most picturesque ceremony. Yes, 2008 Beijing Olympics was still grander and vulgar display of Affluence by a growing Superpower, but London Olympics Ceremony was a spirited display by a nation that ruled the world once. London hosted Olympics in 1908 (when even my grandfather was not born, the 3rd Modern Olympics) and in 1948 immediately after the World War. In the period since 1948, Britain's pound and sterling pride only dwindled and diminished in value. This was a perfect opportunity to showcase the British phenomenon that as Niall Ferguson wrote in his epic book on "The Empire" gave modern living a chance through a language that thrives from incorporating expressions from other languages, a democracy that paved the way for many others to follow and a business culture that is engraved forever. Whoever thought that Britain is just the 54th state of the United States should re-view the Youtube clippings of the Opening ceremony and re-read history of the world that Britain made.