(P)REVIEW OF MAKHI (EEGA)
The much awaited Hindi dubbed
version of Raja Mauli’s Telugu movie Eega (which was simultaneously released in
Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam about 4 months back) is releasing next week as `Makhi’.
Lot of movies were made where actual
or animated version of animals/birds/reptiles (like elephant, cow, goat, Dog, Pig. rat,
rabbit, snake, falcon etc.) as the
central character, but to imagine that someone could conceive and make a full
length movie on an Eeega/Makhi (a House fly) is hard to believe. But the highly talented and bold director
Raja Mauli (backed by Suresh naidu – son of legendary and Guinness record
holder for highest number of films produced Rama Naudi) not only thought and took a bold step and
pulled a fantastic and thoroughly entertaining movie which has all the
ingredients of a commercial pot boiler viz., romance, rebirth/reincarnation,
sentiments, emotions, actions/chases and
lastly but most importantly `revenge’ all centered around Makhi. Being simple and down-to-earth, Raja Mouli
in one of his recently interviews reveled that he got the idea of the movie
while thinking of the irritation/inconvenience he used to face in his childhood
on daily basis in the hands of Makhis while going out on to the fields/open
areas in the morning to attend natural call.
As the saying goes `great ideas
come on the shit pot only'.
Makhi has a very simple love
story of an ordinary and non-flamboyant hero (cutely played by Nani) falling in
love with heroine (Samantha), enter the villain (Sudeep) and without wasting
much of footage the villain kills the hero for coming between him and the
heroin and no one knows about it. In a
typical filmy fashion the hero incarnates to take revenge but here is the twist
in the story - he reincarnates not as a human being but as a `Makhi’ . From here starts the creativity of Raja
Mauli. The reincarnated Makhi makes a grand entry
like a typical south india star (ala Rajni kant or Chiranjeevi), with a ground
level Camera angle and huge sound effect.
From there the roller coaster starts.
He incorporated all important ingredients of humor (by the Makhi
irritating first and then terrorizing the villain), romance between Heroine and the
Makhi, actions/stunts with Makhi involving in a highway bond-type car chases, dances
(taking off dance moment of Jr. NTR Allu Arjun etc. – I don’t know in the Hindi
version take off from which popular Hindi movies will be used) sentiments and
emotions when Makhi get caught and ultimately make supreme sacrifice of its
life (like an Amitabh in Sholay) but not before killing the villain.
Apart from the concept and
direction of Raja Mauli, the special effects team (Makuta Fx) is the real hero of this
movie. Make an out and out Animation movie
may not be that difficult but to have real life characters and animated
characters simultaneously is a big challenge.
First they made a very cute Makhi character so nicely and colourfully
which helped in showing various shades of emotions with crystal clarity.
Coming
to acting department, Sudeep (Kannada actor, who also plays very good cricket
in Celebrity Cricket League) did a fantastic job, whether it is cruelty or
humour on being traumatized by the Makhi, his body language and acting was superb
and his expression have enhanced and magnified the role and character of Makhi
and helped in Makhi becoming the hero of the movie. Again credit should go to Raja Mouli to
conceive this idea of highlighting the character of a Makhi (with all the limitations)
through the reactions of the villain. Considering
that at the time of shooting there is no Makhi character around (which has been
put by animation experts later on ) and Sudeep has to imagine that the Makhi
character is around and emote, his acting is really praise worthy. Right from the first encounter of Sudeep
and Makhi when he locks himself in a steam box to road accident to the climax
his acting was of highest order. Samanta
is gorgeous and her encounter with the hero first and Makhi later are pleasure
to watch and Nani is very cute in his short and sweet role. It
has a very pleasing music scored by Keeravani (a top Telugu music director who
scored music for `Criminal’ and many other Mahesh Bhatt hindi movies) Senthil
Kumar should bag few awards for his excellent cinamatography
Coming back to Raja mouli, after
a string of big budget and mega successful movies with all the leading and top
Telugu heros (including the original of Rowdy Rathore), and the then highest
Telugu recording breaking grosser MAGADHEERA, everyone might have thought that
he will come up with another big budget movie with another leading hero (every top
Telugu star queue up to be casted by him), he did make a big budget `Makhi’
(reported to be at a cost of Rs. 30 crores – more than 80% going into the
special effects), but not with any big stars but with animated character of
Makhi. It really requires great amount of courage and
conviction. One should also give big
pat to the producer Suresh Naidu to pump in such huge amounts in such risky
venture. The entire Telugu film
industry has rallied around Raja Mouli by participating in film promotional
programmes and the South Indian audiences have not disappointed them with movie
becoming a huge hit in all the 3 languages and raking big mullah for the
producers. In Hindi version Raja
Mouli has already roped in Ajay Devgan and Kajol (also making the Makhi do the Ajay Devgan stunt of standing on two
horses from his yet to be released Son of Sardar).
Like Rajnikant’s Rabot, this will
be liked immensely by not only the kids but by all age-groups. So go with your children and revisit your
childhood. You will be surprised to see
such a neat, clean family entertainer after a very long time. I can put this experimental movie in the same league as Pushpaka Vimanam/Pushpak (a full length movie without dialogues), Appu Raja (for its special effects and very special acting by Kamal Hassan as ordinary hero and a dwarf), Chachi 420 (kamal Hassain doing a full length female role), Dasavataram (Kamal essaying 10 diagonally different characters including a Chinese American and a grand old lady) and the recently released Rabot (for its huge special effects)
S. Prabhakar
7th October, 2012
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