Balakrishnudu

What are the basics of a commercial film? Mainly, according to the most of the super hit films, you need a hero who has a mission and a strong opposition to stop him. A fantasy film like Jagadeeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari or a complete adrenaline pumping action film like Pokiri, follow this principle and try to explore it in their own way. The execution differs but every film follows this principle to the tee. Hence, every film looks to be similar to other. But there are few others that try to mix up ten films to make another commercial film that will follow even the scenes and comedy of the others. Balakrishnudu belongs to ghat category with out a doubt.

Plot : A forward thinking Rayalaseema bigwig family of Bhanumathi (Ramyakrishnan) decide to donate 2000 acres of land for improving common facilities. But a feudal and cruel factionist, Pratap Reddy (Ajay) who is number one in all the crimesters in the state, opposes the positive change. He challenges the family of Bhanumathi and in return Bhanumathi brother kills his father. Unable to fathom the loss, Pratap Reddy decides to kill the entire family and successful kills the big brother of Bhanumathi who killed his father.

Bhanumathi takes over the project and due to her shrewdness, Pratap loses control and he is arrested by the police. He owes to kill her niece and her too. To save her niece, Aadhya (Rejina) Bhanumathi appoints, a body guard for 2 lakhs per day remuneration. Balakrishna (Nara Rohit) can do anything for money, so he takes up the job. What happens next forms the rest of the film?

Performances : Rejina never looked so out if sorts in any of her films before. She is just used to show off her body in each and every frame. Such a bad state of affairs for a good actress like her is implausible. Ramyakrishnan on the other hand, seems to be completely sleep walking in the movie. She raises eye brows when she is asked to show some anger and simply looks in to a vacuum when she has to get emotional. This is a criminal misuse of talents like both these two actresses.

Nara Rohit is just behaving like himself on screen rather than trying to be a character. After him trying to show some good potential in his early movies, he is fizzling down to being regular and one dimensional actor. He has much more potential and he should look to concentrate on doing more varied roles with him changing his body language and expressions too.

All others are underutilised in inconsequential roles. Prudhvi, Srinivas Reddy and many more proved comedians fail to sparkle except for even occasional sparks here and there.

Technicalities : Cinematographer Vijay C. Kumar doesn’t really use his imaginative eye to light up the frames. He just uses some common staging and framing basics that too inconsistently. He loses focus on the main character that needs to be highlighted from time to time and that could be an editor’s choice or director’s insistence too. But he needs to take care of such aberrations and give a consistent looking film.

Editing by senior Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao is just painful to say the least. The so boring screenplay with lacklustre comedy and narration is further marred by his choice of cuts. He manages to keep the proceedings at a plausible pace in the first hour but loses the plot in second.

Mani Sharma composed the rehashes of his old tunes. He tried to give a good instrumention to his old popular tunes in a different tone but that shows lack of inspiration from director and his point of view.

Writer – director, Pawan Mallela needed to understand one thing that making a film doesn’t really depend on watching the ten successful films. That is done to know the change in tastes of audience to update our storytelling but not to create a story out of ten films that worked previously. Also, he criminally undermines the talents he has cast in the movie and we can see that none of them were inspired enough to do justice or even liven up the screen.

Analysis : There are many who try to find a chance but when you get one making such a lazy film seems to show lack of understanding and imagination. Samarasimha Reddy or Narasimha Naidu were not new stories and even screenplay was not different from a formula popularised by Baasha. They still stood out to become huge hits because of imaginative taking of a director and good engaging performances from the cast. Take Indra, Tagore, Sri Ramadasu, Mass, Aadhi, Simhadri, Chatrapathi, Baahubali series, Fidaa, Arjun Reddy, Dookudu, Gabbar Singh, Pokiri and many more recent blockbusters. None of them have completely new storylines but they standout because of proper execution. When you don’t give importance to the trust you earned from a producer and an actor, you can’t expect people to be so forgiving and innocent to enjoy whatever you throw at them in the name of commercial cinema.

Rating : 1.5/5

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