“Genius” is an unconventional film in a commercial film format. When the audio was launched, it created lot of buzz when some of the acclaimed writers of Tollywood got together to announce a film that will strike a chord with different segments of society who are exploited by some stakeholders. The writers were Chinnikrishna whose claim to fame are movies like “Indra” and “Gangotri” and of course, mass dialogue writers Parachuri Brothers. The director is somebody hugely popular on the telly – Omkar or Omkar Annayya, who does dance shows with toddlers dancing to gyrating tunes in Tollywood. Omkar directed this film which has a running time of 150 minutes with a one-film hero Haavesh, his own brother Ashwin and another upcoming youngster Jeeva. The storyline is quite simple: Three characters – Haavesh (Nivas), Ashwin (Yasser) and Jeeva (Koti) they all have an obsession with a personality respectively in their areas of interest. For example, Nivas is a blind follower of Pradeep Rawat, a politician. Yasser eulogises a batsman cricketer Nizamuddin (rings a bell?). And Koti is head-over-heels with a superstar/megastar/Call what you will ¬– played by Aashish Vidyarthi. The story then moves forward on how these respective demigods idolized by the three youth become more and manipulative eventually destroying their respective lives – until the three realize they are being exploited and short-changed at every turn of their Gods’ march to mega glory. Pradeep Rawat the typical politician stabs Nivas in the back, Nizamuddin pockets Rs.20 crs in match-fixing, and Peda Babu the film star uses the fans as a ladder for success but doesn’t care a dime when the fans are in need.
That’s quite an explosive story and you can imagine what happens when a jingoistic story writer and an iconic writer-brother team of Parachuri surname gang up together to give a story that breathes fire into screen. To be fair, Omkaar has done well doing justice to the explosive theme and building the plot and characters well which itself is quite many-layered. The casting is near-perfect except for Haavesh who lacks the intensity to be the big hero; he is handsome and has a great voice and body language but is low on emotional intensity which is required to carry a film like this on his shoulders. He falters in first half but heuristically delivers in the second half as crescendo builds to a good climax. It’s the other two - Jeeva and Ashwin who have an impactful screen presence. All the three villains – Aashish Vidyarthi, Pradeep Rawat and Adarsh (Nizamuddin) make their weighty presence in the film. The two heroines are non-entities in a film of this story depth and one of them shines a bit in a song amazingly shot in Leh Lake. In order to build engagement with those who expect more glamour in the film which is deadpan serious, Omkaar inducts a heavy-dose item song with three starlets who have seen better days – Rekha (“Anandam”), Sweta Pandit (“Kotha bangaaru Lokam”) and Anita (“Nuvvu Nenu”). That song “Dibbari Dibbari” is a raunchy number on the hazards of the casting couch in films. The opening song with Raju Sundaram master is also evocative of mass appeal which connects with fans of Omkaar who expect an inkling of his choreographic flair in the films. Dialogues do stand out in some places and appear consistent with the characters. However, contrary to what is expected, Brahmanandam doesn’t get enough smiles.
On the whole, a cool attempt despite few expectations belied – in comedy, pace and casting of the heroine. It is high time a theme of this kind has been attempted in Tollywood which makes more films for the masses but fewer films with a message-orientation. In the last 75 years, Bollywood made about 9200 films. Tollywood made 6200 films while Kollywood made about 6300 films. But nowhere is the manipulation of film fans more rampant than in Tollywood – this especially happens at a level where most fans connect so emotionally well with their heroes but are often overlooked when it comes to proper guidance about their career interests and long-term life goals. Right from the time of ANR and NTR to Krishna and Shobanbabu and Krishnamraju to Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna to the new crop of Gennext superstars, it’s the fans who are being exploited in the selfish pursuit of mega success that heroes get at the cost of substantial sacrifice of the film fans. No doubt, the madness has reduced, but at a basic level – at the level where the audio is release or the coconuts are broken at the morning show or the day before the release when cutouts are mounted to suit the inflated egos of these heroes, there are still many fans who are hapless and gullible – it is their savings and their precious time and their family sacrifices which are invested into the present market value of the heroes and their clans – and the system is self-perpetuating. The wisest fans are the metro crowds and the NRI crowds who moved on in life. The examples of how heroes egg their fans to rush for first day first show tickets, some of them getting crushed, some of them committing suicides gets a lot of pathos.
“Genius” is good in parts and is watchable once and despite the “A” certificate which is given because of the revenge-orientation of the story, it is decent. What is not well-researched is the psyche of the cricket fan and the political fan – the volunteer. Those could have been better analysed and projected. Music by Joshua Sridhar is quite soothing and I have been following his music since the movie “Prema” was released – he is a music director who is attempting to break new sound barriers without sacrificing melody which is the lynchpin of long-lasting music. I will give this movie 3 on 5 because it is reasonably well-made, holds out powerful messages that can strike a chord and has good technical, performance and family values.
