Akharleni Arupulu Kekalu & Gola - `Akhanda -2’

(Review by S. Prabhakar)

 

There is a  हिंदी मुहावरा"आ बैल मुझे मार" (Aa bail mujhe maar) (which means inviting trouble to ourselves).    Going to a Balayya movie is nothing less than that.    Most of the Non Balayya fans (which includes me) very well know that we can hardly expect anything new or different from his movies.   Sometimes, though we know a movie (almost every movie of Balayya) could be bad, we still dare to check to see how bad it is.  In his entire career, there were 3-4 movies of Balayya which I could tolerate, and Akhanda-1 is one of them.   Going by Akhanda-1, that too the Akhanda role and the high hype given as saviour of Sanathana Dharma, I thought Boyapati-Balayya magic may work one more time.   But it is far from it and the die-hard Jai Balayya Brigade can only stomach whatever has been churned by Boyapati-Balayya combo. 

 

As a concept, the topic chosen is not bad -  Chinese joining hands with a corrupt politician whose father has lost power and son trying to grab power at any cost including dividing Hindus and making them lose faith in Hinduism (any resemblances to Rahul Gandhi is not a coincidence).  He lets loose a virus in Maha Khumb Mela and tries to shake the faith of Hindus by propagating that God has not come to their rescue and our Akhanda not only saves the anti-dot to the virus but also gives liberal sermons on Hindutva, Sanatana Dharma.   However, the execution falters, and there is hardly anything to hold the audience's attention.   Like Rajni movie directors, KGF and Sallar directors, Boyapati also suffers from his fixation on elevations.   How far can one be satisfied by stupid elevations, which are always larger than life and, beyond one point get on to your nerves.  

 

The good concept has not developed well due to a lack of depth in the story, poor dialogue writing,  and poor delivery by Balayya, full of stuttering, coupled with his brand of shouting and yelling without expressions or emotional depth in acting.   we cannot expect Balayya to deliver simple Telugu dialogue coherently; how can we expect him to deliver Sanskrit dialogue? He and Boyapati can only understand and appreciate, added to it the non-synchronisation of his dialogue delivery with body language and movement makes it a total cartoon caricature.   Earlier there was Krishna, who even after acting in over 300 movies, could never improve his still statue-like pose before the camera in a side angle, weak and shivering voice, funny facial expressions in the name of acting and now we have Balayya who has acted in over 100 movies but still could not develop proper synchronisation between his dialogue delivery and body language – the final effect is always like a poorly dubbed Chenese movies of late 70s.    

 

Everything is bad about Akhanda-2 and there is nothing to write positively about it.   Another fixation Boyapati has is that he has to show two Balayyas, whether required or not.    There is hardly any role or relevance of the first Balayya in the movie, but he has wasted a good part of the first half on him, going through routine motions and one dance with the female lead of less than half his age, who thankfully gets killed and saves us from any more romantic scenes or songs with robot-like moving Balayya.  

 

The opening with Chenese villains (played well by Bengali actor Saswat Chatterjee and Bhutani actor Sanjay Tsheltrim)  raised some hope which was dashed the moment the first Balayya enters.    The Maha Khumb mela scenes (looked to be originally shot at the Mahakhumbh Mela) looked good, but the rest of Leh Ladhakh, Amarnath are all probably shot with green screen and were poorly executed.   Hope of movie picking up after the entry of Akhanda also did not happen with mindless elevations, ear-splitting loud dialogue delivery and the Boyapati Balayya patented curse and abusive words.  What could be more ridiculous than showing PM, HM, NIA helpless and instead of falling back on our powerful defence forces, hoping and praying that an Aghora will come and rescue the country.    I read somewhere that Boyapati and Balayya have screened some scenes to Yogi Adityanath and are saying that PM has shown interest in the movie and they are planning to show it to PM also.  He will split his hair if he sees such scenes and our Balayya acting.

The CAG are of pathetic quality, especially the backdrop of icy mountains, the gun battles and blasts are elementary and look like what we saw in movies in the 1990s.  All the scenes involving Adi Pinisetty were horribly handled; the scenes of SVR as a black magician in 70-year-old Patala Bhairavi look far better than in this movie.   Adi Pinisetti is completely wasted.  Thaman, the music director, as always, is loud; he could not use the Sanskrit slokas well as background music.     Someone like Keeravani could have done justice.   The seasoned action directors Ram Laxman did a pathetic job, showing throughout the movie with a trishul in hand Balayya faceing hundreds of Chinese army men with AK-47 and making a dozen fly in the air and bounce like a football on Balayya thumping his leg or trishul on the earth.  What better can they do when they have to handle a 65-year-old bulky hero.     Normally, people say when you go to a Boyapati-Balayya combo movie, you should leave your brain and rational thinking at home, but it seems both of them kept their brains in a deep freezer at home while going for the shooting of Akhanda-2, Boyapati, as a director, has been a complete let-down.

 

Overall, an average movie, which is being dubbed as a blockbuster in 4 days.   Today, in the afternoon show in Delhi, there were 12 people in a theatre with a capacity of over 350 seats.  As MLN says in Aagadu, flop movie directors hold more success meets.   I am absolutely shocked to listen to Gangadhara Shastry, pravachana karta,  going gaga about Boyapati and Balayya as Karanajanmulu to have made this movie.    As if Telugu is not enough, it has been released in many languages, including Hindi and Boyapati and Balayya made buffoons of themselves by their murderous Hindi in road shows in Mumbai.   After many decades wait, with the efforts of directors like Rajamouli, Kanaga Raj and Prashant Neel a pan-India market has been created, but if movies like OG and Akhanda-2 are released in theatres, the PAN India audience will lose interest in Telugu and South movies.   In the interest of PAN India movies, Boyapati, Balayya, and Pawan Kalyan should spare the North audience.   

 

Non-Balayya fans are cautioned to stay away from this movie, even on OTT release.   As far as `Jai Balayya Brigade’ is concerned, they have a lot to lap up and cheer and shout Jai Balayya in theatres (preferably single screen) till their vocal cords pain. 

 

S. Prabhakar

16.12.2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review of Dulquer Salmaan’s Tamil/Telugu movie Kaantha (available multilingual on Netflix)

Dulquer Salmaan’s latest Tamil/Telugu movie `Kaantha’ is an interesting thriller murder mystery with the backdrop of the Tamil industry of the 1950s, with claims of family members of its being loosely based on the biography of the star of the Tamil Industry in the early 1950s M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar.  It traces the ego clashes and one-upmanship between an established director played by Samuthirakani and an upcoming star played by Dulquer and the debutant heroine, played by Bhagyashree, caught in the crossfire between the two giants.   The type of clash the director and rising star had, the director not tolerating the interference of the star and the star was more bothered about his image and how the public would perceive his role and interfering in the work of the director.   The show down going to the extent of the star trying to throw the director out of the movie and he himself taking charge to finish the movie and unsuccessful attempt by the director to harm the hero by attempts on his life.   The South Indian audience can relate this fictional story to MGR, NTR, ANR, Shivaji, growing larger than life and directors finding it difficult to tailor-make their scripts suiting to their images.  

The slow-moving plot picks up and becomes racy after the murder of the heroine and the entry of Rana as the investigating officer.    The needle of suspicion keeps moving from one person to another, present in the studio, including the hero and the director and others outside the studio but related to the hero.  Even after the culprit is revealed the movie ends with an unexpected but interesting twist.   

Dulquer has once again put in an excellent performance; he impresses more and more with each outing.   It’s a challenging role for a young actor to reprise the role of a hero of the 1950s, the body language, the acting style of those days etc.   The Telugu audience will recollect his role of Gameni Ganeshan in Mahanati. Whenever people criticise and condemn the nepo kids, one should remember stars like Dulquer (son of Malayalam top star Mammootty), Ranbir, who, despite being labelled as nepo kids, put their best performances and proved themselves on their merit.    Samuthirakani too gave a powerful performance as an egoistic director who expects everyone, including top stars follow his commands like school-going kids.   Bhagyashree was refreshing and innocent as per the demands of the role.   Though with limited talent, Rana does well in support roles and is slowly proving to be like Akshey Khanna of the Telugu industry.  

Overall, an interesting thriller, and not a run of mills movies, and I give 4 out of 5, 0.5 for Dulqer's super performance in a challenging role.

 

S. Prabhakar

14.12.25

 

Review of Hindi movie `Dhurandhar'

By

S Prabhakar

There was a positive pre-release buzz before the release of Hindi movie Dhurandhar, apart from a big assembly of the star cast, it has references to many terrorist attacks like the Kandahar hijack, the Mumbai attack and the Parliament attack, Ajit Doval's strategies, etc., which made me watch a Hindi movie in a theatre.

Dhurandhar is a well-made spy thriller in great detail.    The highlight of the movie is perfect casting and the bold manner liberal references are made to Pakistan, the Baloch politics,  ISI, Presidents of Pakistan, ISI chiefs, heads of Terrorist outfits.   Throughout the movie, there are backdrops of Pakistan and direct references made about the infamous terrorist attacks and their celebrations on the other side in Pakistan.  

One of the very few movies in recent times in which many actors have put their best performances:

·       The makeover of R Mahadevan as Ajit Doval and his restrained performance were at their best.  A gifted actor who gives his best whenever he gets an opportunity

·       Akhey Khanna, the most underrated but brilliant actor of the Hindi film industry, has once again stolen the thunder.   Though he was looking a bit weak and sick, he has gone into the skin of the character and brought out all shades brilliantly.   Like his father Vinod Khanna, he may not be able to carry a movie on his shoulder, but he gives his best in multi-starrers and stands tall

·       Ranvit Singh, though many times he tired us with his overacting, loud and lousy acting style, has given a controlled, restrained performance in this movie.   Like Samson it may be something to do with long hair and beard. Whenever he sports long locks like in Padmavat, he puts up his best performance.    He is excellent as an Indian spy who has infiltrated the terrorist outfits in Pakistan and become a trusted lieutenant before bumping off a dreaded terrorist.  

·       Sanjay Dutt, though he looked tired and worn out,  has an extended cameo and is good

·       Sara is cute and confident

·       The surprise package has been Rakesh Bedi, whom we have known as a decent comedian for decades.   He got a meaty role in a Hindi movie for the first time in his career, and he is brilliant in every shade of a crooked politician character.

·       Arjun Rampal had a small role of a menacing ISI chief; his emotions have been drowned in a heavy bearded make-up.   I expected a far better and better defined role for such a character in the movie.  

Aditya Dhar's writing is good, raising a lot of raw pent-up patriotic feelings and as a director has got the best out of most of the cast.   But he has failed in editing; scenes were not crisp and kept dragging.  Over 220 minutes of duration is tiring and tests the patience of the audience.   He has gone into OTT mode, breaking the movie into chapter-wise and seems to be in no hurry to make the narrative racy.   After this length of movie also, only the first part is covered, and there is more to come, indicating that all the episodes of `Ghar main jus kar marenge’ will be covered in the second part.  

Going by the present trends and bad precedents set by Telugu and Tamil movies, there is an extreme and overdose of violence not easy for everyone to digest.   Music and BGM are very average, for most part of the movie old super hit Hindi songs have been used, which beyond one point become stale and repetitive.   BGM in Hindi movies specially action movies, needs a lot of improvement to catch up with DSP (Pushpa 1 and 2) , Keeravani (Bahubali 1, 2 and RRR) and Anirudh (Coolie and Jailer) and Taman S to elevate the action scenes.  

Overall, a movie worth watching in theatres, provided you have the patience to sit through over 3 ½ hour-long movie with a 2-hour pre-interval.    Hope it does well at the box office and revives the commercial movies of Hindi

S. Prabhakar

6.12.2025

 

DHARMENDRA – the man with Golden Heart – takes final bow

By S. Prabhakar

 

Indian film industry’s most handsome, charming and original he-man Dharmendra is no more.   After surviving false rumours about his death, a fortnight back, and after a valiant fight for two weeks, he finally took a final bow on  24^th November, 2025, a few days away from his 90^th Birthday.  

The Desi Dharmendra

At a time when Dharmendra entered the tinsel world, it was the literate and people with a stage background who entered the film industry.    It was not easy for a desi rural rugged Punjabi munda to break the glass ceiling, but our Desi Dharam did it.   With no Godfather, training in acting, and filmy family lineage, he came to Bombay and did not set the screen on fire right from the beginning.    With serious and rooted actors like Dilip Kumar, Balraj Sahani, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt leading the roost, it is anything but easy for Dharam to establish.   

The first He-Man charts his own path :

With moderate acting skills and not suited for serious and emotional roles in movies, there was no way Dharam could join the bandwagon of the then stars and tread on the same path.   So, Dharam has charted his own path and become the first He-Man and action hero of Hindi cinema, or probably Indian cinema.  

Being a typical Punjabi, he was blessed with a natural, rugged body and charming personality.   Barring the professional wrestler Dara Singh (he too was from Punjab), there was hardly any male actor who could bear his body (going shirtless), flex his muscles, threatening badies with his patented dialogue `KUTTE MAIN TERA KHOON PEEJAVOONGA’ and beat the goons to pulp film after film.  

The Indian audience who had to fall back on Hunterwali `Homi Nadia’ for action movies in 40s and 50s, lapped up the first He-Man and action hero, and Dharam and he has slowly and steadily made a niche for himself in the action movie genre and became the torchbearer for dozens of action heroes who followed him.     Thanks to other hunks around at that time like Sunil Dutt, Vinod Khanna and Feroz Khanna, and much later Amitabh Bhachan, who followed Dharam the Action scenes have become such an indispensable integral part of Hindi movies that romantic heroes like Dev and Shammi too had to put some action scenes though they were ill at ease

The Golden period of  Dharam career:

By 1970s  Dharam has established himself as the most reliable and undisputed king of the action genre.    He groomed himself as the most handsome, charming and with his infectious and famous smile (at all times), he has become a youth icon.    Dharam may not be the romantic variety of hero like Dev or Rajesh Khanna, but he had his own charm and used to floor the younger generation, both male and female fans.  

During this phase, I entered my teens and like many teens, the action movies were my first and the only choice and I grew up on staple doses of action movies – NTR and Krishna in Telugu and  Dharam in Hindi.   Action movies of 70s like Phool aur Phattar, Raja Jani, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Yadon Ki Baraat, Jugnu, Loafar, Pathar aur Payal, Sholay, Pratigya, International Crook, Saazish, Shalimar and block blockbuster hit Dharam Veer, catapulted Dharam to the top bracket though he was never in the race for No. 1 and then falling from grace and maintained his position steadily for over two decades.  

Working within his own Limitations:

With due respect to the departed soul,  Dharam is no great actor by any yardstick, he couldn’t emote well, could not assign serious roles.   But he created a niche of his own, predominantly action genre, and excelled in that.    In this respect, I always compare Telugu actor Krishna and Dharam.    Though both of them had limitations, talent-wise, both managed their careers so well, sticking to the action genre and, most importantly, developed and nurtured a dedicated fan base.    Krishna acted in over 300 movies and produced over 50 movies, and Dharam acted in over 200 movies; both had career spanning 40 -50 years.  

Dabbling with comedies:

Other than the action genre, if  Dharam excelled in any other genre, it is Comedy.    He had an excellent comic timing and it was easy the break the image of action hero and pull comedies.   He was brilliant and lovable in `Chupke and Chukpe’  ( all his scenes with Omprakash were brilliant), ‘Sholay’, ‘Dillagi’, ‘Pratigya’, ‘Naukar Biwi Ka’.  But his star status, the big banners with which he worked and the budgets of the movies were so huge that he could not do full justice to his special talent of comedy except once in a while working with directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee

The eternal romantic charmer:

There was a time in the late 60s and 70s  Dharam used to look like a Greek God, so handsome and charming that he swept all the leading ladies with whom he worked.   But his pairing with Hema Malini was iconic and focklorish.  Film after film in over a dozen movies, they looked fantastic and made for each other.    After the famous Raj Kapoor-Nargis jodi,  Dharam and Hema jodi was the most popular and enduring.   Unlike in case of Rajkapoor–Nargis, the on-screen chemistry between  Dharam and Hema rubbed off in their personal lives also and ultimately they got married in 1980, triggering a huge debate and fuelling controversy.    Dharam first wife Prakash being so homely, and he having a lovely and settled family, the second marriage was not well received in the industry and by his fans.    In this aspect also there is also a similarity between Telugu actor Krishna and  Dharam.   Krishna too got married to co actor Vijaya Nirmala when his first wife was alive, without divorcing the first wife.   Till the first wife breathed her last he managed both the families.    Dharam too did the same, kept his first wife and children in the village, till he launched Sunny and Bobby in movies and Hema and her daughters in Mumbai.   The way  Dharam took care of both families and children from both marriages so well that fans accepted it and they moved on.

 Dharam – The great human being:

What really stands out about  Dharam is his being simple, down to earth, natural with great humility.   He was a man with a golden heart.   What was in his heart was on his lips.   None of his interviews ended without his mentioning about his liking of your drinks and drinking habits.   Wherever and whenever he spoke, there was great genuineness and honesty.   Inside that tough exterior, there was a soft, shy and emotional human being.    Both his sons Sunny and Bobby too turned out to be extremely emotional guys, and we often saw all three turning into tears in chat shows.

A Life lived to the fullest:

Overall, the life and career of  Dharam have been very successful and fulfilling.  Someone who started his life in a garage, becoming one of the most successful self-made actors of the Hindi industry who worked with top banners, producers, heroines and co-stars, is not a small achievement.    He charmed his way into the hearts of millions of fans, and every film personality has only good things to tell about him. 

Thanks, Dharam for all the entertainment for over half a century.   There will be no natural charmer than you.  

Om Shanti.

S. Prabhakar

24.11.2025

 

 

 

 Kishore Kumar - singer with Sweetest voice

Today is the 38^th Death Anniversary of Kishore Kumar one of the greats of Hindi and Bengali film industry.   Kishore had sweetest, and most romantic voice, but when required he used to put lot of energy into the song.   Janeja dhoodh ta phir raha, Om Shanti Om, Ek Haseena Thi, Ek diwana tha were few of the examples of his energy Having come from acting background, he developed himself to be a performer apart from a singer.    Unlike most of his contemporaries, Kishore was the first singer who did not have any classical music background and was not interested in singing and happy being an actor/comedian.   Thanks to the goading by his elder brother and actor Ashok Kumar he was pushed into the singing.   Come Aradhana and sensational hit songs of that movie by Kishore under the music direction of SD Burman there was no looking back.   First backed by SD and his son RD, then followed by all other music directors like Kalyanji Anandji, LP, Rajesh Roshan, he gave some of the top chart busters of 70s and shaken the undisputed position of Rafi, whose career took a bit of dip in 70s compared to 50s and 60s.   Kishore has become the voice of not only Rajesh Khanna, but all other top heros like Dev Anand, Amitabh, Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra and Feroz Khanna.    He extended his range to the next generation younger heros like Rishi (despite stupendous success of Bobby by Shailender Singh), Rakesh Roshan, Vinod Mehra and Sanjay Dutt.

Kishore in collaboration with Kalyanji Anandhi troupe has become the pioneer of live music concerts in India and abroad on a regular basis.   The energy with which he used to sing on stage, moving and dancing all around the stage and singing songs very close to the original studio recording without every referring to the lyrics, was amazing and no one could do so at that time with a possible exception of S P Balasubramanian later on.  

There was never a dull moment when Kishore was around, every singer, music director and actor has so many anecdotes to share of his practical jokes, unending innovative things he used to do spontaneously to lighten up any situation.   He once asked Lata see the lyrics of this movie, `Suno Kaho kuch hua to kya, abhi to nahi, kuch bhi nahi’, when Lata asked what is so special about it, he asked her just imagine if singers sing this song while sitting on a pot.  Such crazy ideas can come to Kishore only.   There were many stories of his troubling producers in a funny manner who have not paid him advance to sing.   He was so particular about his payments and his policy of not singing unless he was paid advance that he refused to sing in a program organised by Sanjay Gandhi unless he is paid his fee and in return Sanjay Gandhi got his songs been banned from AIR and Doordarshan for over an year.  

Though Kishore was not trained in classical music and unlike SPB, he never learnt classical music subsequently also, he sang some of the most iconic songs based on classical ragas like Mere Naina Sawan Badho (Raag Sivaranjani), Kuch to log kahenge (Raag Khamaj) Rim Jhim gire sawan (raag Keeravani) Humain tum se pyar kitna (raag Bhairavi) and many more.

There is no denying that Kishore played a huge role in the super stardom of Rajesh Khanna, later on of Amitabh, Risi, Vinod Khanna and super success of music directors like Rajesh Roshan, RD Burman, LP, Kalyanji Anandji and Bappi Lehari

                 

Apart form being a singer he was great comedian and in super hit comedies viz., Chalti ka naam gadi, Padosan, Half Ticket, Pyar Kiya ja he was simply brilliant, and these movies are enjoyable even now.   Besides singing and acting, he has tried his hands at lyrics, music direction, producing and directing.   But his becoming super successful in singing had forced him to give up acting due to very tight schedules and we lost a brilliant comedian in the process.

Overall Kishore Kumar has given great entertaining to film industry as an Actor first and later on more as a Singer. 

There can be superior or inferior singers (as per one’s own liking) but there could never be another Kishore, a man with sweetest voice and unimaginable energy.

 

S Prabhakar

13.10.25

 

 

 

Review of Kantara Chapter 1

(Kannada movie released in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, English and Spanish)

The much anticipated and hyped prequel to the highly successful Kantara has released today in many languages and it has, by far, lived up to the high expectations.   The spell bound climax and superb acting and direction by Rishab in Kantara has taken that movie and expectation on prequel, Kantara Chapter 1 to dizzy heights. 

While Kantara is more in line of Pushpa, the cat and mouse game between Hero and the police officer and zamindar trying to grab forest land and exploiting the tribal laborer prequel deals more into the mythological aspect of the forest and forest god and belief of the tribes protecting it. 

There is a egoist king (Jayaram) who lies low after his father gets killed in pursuit of God’s forest, his wayward alcoholic and womaniser son (beautiful played by Gulshan Devaiah) and his pretty daughter (played by Rukmini) who falls for the hero Berme, who is the protector of the tribe and the God’s forest from the king and another tribal gang.  So compared to Kantara, the prequel has a larger canvass, characters and producer directors have gone for a grand scale.  

For some strange reasons Rishab, seems to be inspired by popular movies, in Kantara if it was Pushpa in Kantara 1 it is Maniratnam’s PS1, in the initial over one hour of romance and comical elements.    But its so long that the movie gets dragged till interval and looked going off the track.   But the from action scene at interval bang and entire post interval the movie picks up and races leading to fantastic climax, Rishab pulling another spell bound performance as man possessed.  

What worked for Kantara 1.   In an era, full of CAG and VFX effects, it comes as a great relief that major portion of the movie was shot in stunning locales in forest, the beautiful traditional sets, fire torches and costumes.   The action scenes are lavishly mounted and very well executed under the direction of Indian and foreign stunt directors.    Though there will be unfair comparison with climax action scenes of Bahubali, but the action scenes are well executed in their own right with the budget at their disposal.  

As far as acting is concerned, its director and actor Rishad Shetty stands out.   Though in the first half he allowed Jayaram, Gulshan Devaiah and Rukmini to walk away with meaty roles, he picked himself up post interval and peaked in the climax and again proved that he only could pull off such intense scenes like in kantara.    Jayaram was very good as the King, Gulshan was suited the role of spoilt prince to the T,  Rukmini was beautiful and full of confidence and control.  

Music by Ajaneesh Loknath was top class, the BGM, the use of Kannada folk songs at appropriate places was brilliant.    Cinematography by Arvind S. Kashyap is captivating and infusing life to the proceedings.  

If the pre interval romantic and comedy track is trimmed to 30 minutes and over all if the movie was trimmed to 2 hours 20 minutes it would have been more racy and interesting specially to non-Kannada and non-South Indian audience.    But overall Kantara Chapter 1 has not disappointed and yet another sincere effort by Director and Actor Rishab Shetty.

Thanks to the hype, it was reported to have mopped Rs. 65 crores on the first day and if it can hold it till the first weekend, it could easily make Rs. 400-500 crores and if that happens that will be another success story from Kannada industry at a PAN India level.   

First it was the stupendous success of animation movies Mahavatar Narasimha, last month Telugu movie Mirai, with roots in Hindu mythology and history has made over Rs. 200 crores and now we have Kantara, another movie rooted in Kannada tradition, forest God and tribal believes.   While Bollywood is busy pushing pro-Muslim and anti Hindu narrative, from Zanjeer Deewar days to Pathan,  South India movies are coming out with commercial movies rooted in Hindu mythology, thick and fast and braking all box office records and created it as a trend.    

S. Prabhakar

2.10.2025

 

 

Mahavtar Narasimha

(full length animation movie, available in 5 languages on Netflix)

Mahavtar Narasimha, One of the most talked about movie of the year, fourth highest grossing movie, a full length animation movie, which gave run for money, to multi starrer movies with top stars like Coolie, War2, Chhavva and  Kubera and till date standing as the highest grosser of 2025 in terms of rate of return of over Rs. 350 cr on an investment of Rs. 45 crores.

Its Director all the way : Kudos to the debutant director AshwinmKumar to think of a full length animation movie covering two Avatars of Lord Vishnu that of Narsimha and Varaha and introducing the Hindu mythology to the movie goers specially youngsters and children the way they like the most.  

We all are familiar with stories of Hiranksha, Hiranyakashup, Holika and Bhakt Prahlada.    Presenting the known story in an interesting a racy manner, with fabulous set designs, character caricatures and translating them into animation characters and bring out each scene in a gigantic but a natural way is not an easy task and Director and his VFX team have come out fabulous in that.

Coming of age of Indian Animation movies : till now in India animation is restricted to small, amateurish cartoon characters, mostly catering to children and short movies.     In contrast to that Mahavatar Narasimha is a full length 130 minutes animation movie.    It’s a top quality, rich, colourful, attractive and very impactful movie.   All that coming at a Rs. 45 crore budget is unbelievable considering that most of the Rs. 500 crores plus budget movies are earmarking over Rs. 100 crores for VFX and still coming out horrible stuff like War2.   Right from first frame it’s a visual splendour the entry of Varaha avatar and last 20 minutes elaborate action scenes are spell bound.    

What Bahubali has done to PAN India big budget movies and cross over movies, Narasimha will do it to Indian animation movies and more mythological subjects being presented in this format in an attractive and glossy fashion at lesser budgets.   It is always a risk to take established actors for mythological subject, barring NTR top stars in all languages struggle to shake off their image and get into the skin of the mythological roles.   We all have seen what a disaster Adipurush turned out to be though it has bankable star in Prabhas, Saif and Kriti.   The half animation and half normal movie tanked immediately after the release of teaser itself.   There were many scenes where audience will be awestruck at the way the scenes was conceived, designed and executed to perfection.

Decent music :  Besides VFX and direction, the other significant contribution has come from music director Sam SC, back ground score is very good, couple of songs and devotional recitation is pleasing.   But being mythological movie I would have expected more recitation and few more devotional songs and bhajans from Prahlada character.    Movie goers, specially Telugu and Tamil from my generation have memories of AVM’s Bhakt Prahlada (starring legendary SVR, Anjali and Baby Roja Ramani) and its haunting melodies.

Trend setter: Good or bad, the movie producers are known to follow the trends, more of course the later.   But I have no doubt that the stupendous success of Mahavatar Narasimha  will set a trend for other to follow and come out with more and more mythological themes so that our children and youngster can stay in touch with our mythology.    The producers (who made Kantara – the super successful Kannada movie), have already announced other Avatars of Lord Vishnu viz., Parasuram, Krishna, Ram and Kalki in that order.  

It’s a movie not to be missed by any class of movie goers of any age.   Strongly recommended for elders to show to their children so that they develop some interest in Hindu mythology and the great learnings from it.

S. Prabhakar

20.9.2025

 

 

REVIEW OF THE BANGAL FILES – 

STARK AND HARD ON THE FACE STUFF

After facing lot of uncertainty and hostility and pre-release criticism and allegations of being propaganda film and allegations of an attempt to divide the country on communal lines, Bengal files has ultimately released in theatres and I rushed to watch it before it is being banned and pulled out of theatres by coercive measures

Whether it is Tashkent Files, Kashmir Files, Kerala Files or Bengal Files in India or many Hollywood movies made from 60s to 90s on the barbaric acts and genocide by Hitler, Idi Aman and many more dictators, there should be freedom to show the truth.   Covering them up, for whatever reasons, for so many years, and being in self denial mode did not serve any purpose and the gen-next youth have a right to know the historical facts how so ever gory they may be.   Burying them deep and letting the next generations not know it, in itself is a great disservice which has been done for decades.

Coming to elite media, socialites, film personalities like half expression John Abraham that such movies are dangerous and whip up passions and will divide the country on communal lines, I feel that they have their own reasons and compulsions to say so due to their political leanings, but average movie goer like me doesn’t have any.

One may disagree with the sources of research done by writer director Vivek Agnihotri, some cinematic liberties that he might have taken, have serious reservation on the most graphic and gory manner of depicting bloodshed and extreme violence unleashed on the innocent who were hacked to death, beheaded, women were raped and hung with hooks by their breasts, people were burnt live, one sardar hands tied from both side by ropes and pulled by motor cycles on either side to tear him into two parts and dragged on the roads in the market etc., but no one can deny the carnage that took place in Bengal at that time on the Direct Action Day on 16^th August, 1946 and the Noakhali riots.   

When I saw Kashmir Files, I thought Agnihotri has just touched the subject and did not go in to depth of the incidents or issues, but in Bengal Files its `no holds barred’.   He deals with the subject in great details and allowed the subject to sink and shake the audience.   Audience can feel the pain and anguish for what the victims had gone through and cannot help the feeling of stomach churning, reeling and vomiting sensation.    I experienced this earlier while watching Schindler's List.

Coming to the movie, I always feel that for a movie to be complete and successful, apart the story, screenplay, direction casting is very important.     As far as casting of Bengal Files is concerned Agnihotri was bang on.    Kudos to him and his casting director for picking up best actor for each of the over dozen important characters of the movie.   In the recent past I haven’t seen such a perfect casting where over 12 actors gave excellent to brilliant performances.  

 

 

The actors who put up brilliant performance in the same order are

 

• Saswata Chatterjee as Sardar Husseini, MLA.    – a highly talented Bengali actor who showed glimpses of his brilliance in Hindi movie Kahani as menacing contractor killer.   In this movie also he had a small 4-5 scenes role but two scenes where he encounters the special CBI officer, he was so cool, composed, polished but menacing.   I wonder why it took so much time after Kahani where too he was very impressive, to get another look at by Bollywood.   He deserves more and meaty roles in Hindi and other language movies.
• Darshan Kumar as Shiva Aloke Pandit, the special CBI Officer – Handled the pivotal central character very well showing his anguish and helplessness, especially when he goes to arrest the MLA and gets slapped and forced to apologise before MLA son and wife.
• Pallavi Joshi as Maa Bharati / aged Bharti Banerjee – extremely complex role of a dementia patient and the only surviving member of the dreadful incident.    This is a role of lifetime for any one and she gave performance of her life time.  
• Namashi Chakraborthy as Gulam Hussaini – this character does most of the killings by hacking, he was menacing and villainy oozing out his face, eyes and body language.   He exhibited not only ruthlessness but projected each killing as a souvenir
• Simrat Kaur as young Bharati Banerjee – she is beautiful, expressive and gone though all shades of happiness, sad, anguish and helplessness in equal measure.   Though a Kaur, she looked like a Bengali girl.
• Eklavya Sood as Amarjeet Arora – He looked like real Sardar and brilliant in his body language and rebellion expressions.  He is comfortable in soft romantic expressions and fiery aggression.
• Sourav Das as Gopal Patha – though had a lesser screen time, his acting was explosive and impactful
• Dibyendu Bhattacharya as  Roy Chowdhary – matured and dignified role
• Mithun Chakraborty as Madman Chatur – a 3-time national award winner, after working in over 50 good for nothing movies, he picks up one good role and exhibits the better actor in him.   This movie is one of such movies with an unrecognisable make up and body language.
• Anupam Kher as Mahatma Gandhi – hardly had few scenes and expressed the self-imposed helplessness of Gandhi very well and got hooting in the theatre – a clear disapproval of Gandhi’s inapt handling of such a serious situation when thousands of Hindus were killed. 
• 
  
• At 3 hours and 20 minutes the movie is very lengthy if it is trimmed by atleast 30 minutes it would have become crisp and racier.    Both current day situations and flash back to 1946 are dragged a bit.    May be writer director Agnihotri might have been tempted too much by his research that he over filmed and stretched the movie .  

Overall it is most hard-hitting movie by Agnihotri, despite whatever the criticism and accusations, he did a very good job and we should appreciate him for bringing to the light the unfortunate carnage of the Noakhali riots which were kept under wraps by the Government, media and movie makers.  We need more such brave Director and more such movies.

If you are not pseudo secular, elite socialite or partisan, and have the stomach to withstand stomach churning and extremely violent scenes even on women and children, then you must catch up the movie.

I give 4 out of 5 for brilliant acting by so many actors and excellent direction and the guts of Vivek Agnihotri

 

S. Prabhakar

8.9.2025

 

Kanappa – the worst Telugu mythological movie ever made  

At last I watched Kannapa on OTT, to see how badly it is made after my first unsuccessful attempt to watch it in theatre on 4^th day in Vizag when the show was cancelled as atleast 10 tickets were not sold.   Honestly it took huge efforts to complete it in 3-4 instalments.

Though Mohan Babu has pumped in huge budget of over Rs. 200 crores on non-bankable Son Vishnu’s movie and packed it with top stars from various industries like Akshay Kumar, Sarat Kumar, Mohan Lal and our own Prabhas as a safety net.   Right from the start of the movie, Manchu family has given it huge publicity in social media and the trolling batch was equally active.   Ever since the stupendous success of Bahubali and RRR, every Telugu producer and every director feels that big budget and over the top vfx are the only factors which makes a movie a sure shot success.    But what they forget is that every movie needs to have a good story, screen play and capable director to come out with an engaging and racy narration.    Kannappa lacked all of these and added to that pathetic vfx which is as bad like pre vfx period 1980s quality.   So much father son publicity was given about shooting New Zealand and what we had is a huge green open land which you can find anywhere in Shimla (specially Dalhousie) and Dharmashala.  

The challenge while making any mythological or historical movies like Kannapa is the basic story from the available sources is very thin, the develop that into a full fledged movie some interesting and acceptable side story has to be developed, and have all ingredients of romance, comedy and ofcourse action.   There is  not much material about Kanappa,   Not seen Kannada Rajkumar’s Kalahasti mahatyam, but Krisham Raju made a very interesting movie `Bhakta Kannapa’ sticking mainly on Kannappa theme and an excellent comedy track by Rao Gopal Rao and Mada and super hit songs that brought lot of name, fame and money for Krishnam Raju.  

But in Kannapa for major portion of 3 hour long movie, it was more of irrelevant tribal gang wars and boring and very modern looking and cheap romantic track.  Akshay is looking like a cartoon character as Lord Shiv, Mohan Lal hardly had one scene, Mohan Babu is not very effective, the only saving grace is Prabhas, but he comes too late after almost 2 hours, seasoned senior actor Sarat Kumar too is good.   The movie goers like me who have seen NTR and Character Actor Balayya as Lord Shiv cannot digest AK as Shiv.   The actual Kanappa story starts after 2 and ½ hours run time and that too was handled very badly.    The Mohan Babu may feel that it is the best performance of Vishnu till now, but even his best efforts are pedestal.   The image of Mohan Babu as anti-brahmin and lampooning them in every second film, has not help their cause when they wanted to make a movie on mythological subject.  

Director Mukesh Kumar Singh, who shot into popularity with some popular TV serials, is not mature enough to handle such subject with such budget.    Apart from the thin story line and lose screenplay, his handling of VFX and action scenes is really inadept.   The action scenes over the bridge (which resembles the action scene of Magadheera) and the giant spider scenes are so poorly executed that what was created by Vithalacharya in 1960s in NTR movies like Jagadekaveeruni Kadha, Gulebakavali Kadha etc, looked far better and executed.    Music – both songs and BGM is below average.

Rather than Vishnu, the movie should have been made with Prabhas, with good script focusing more on Kanappa, Kalahasti and related stories with more talented director handling the project.   Then it could have had good chance of hitting bull’s eye.  

The bombing of Kanappa could be the last straw on Mohan babu back.   Neither his films nor his children’s films are running at the box office and he has blown large portion of what he has earned over the last 40 years.   He should think of making a very late come back in villain roles like Jagapati Babu, which are now going to Bollywood under employed stars like Sanjay Dutt and Bobby Doel.  Mohan babu is far superior actor than them.   

S. Prabhakar

 

Review of Tamil movie Coolie

(Released in multi languages PAN India)

 

Much hyped and much anticipated Coolie hit the screens on 14^th August, 2025, whose pre-launch publicity reached feverish pitch with stars from different languages viz., Nagarjuna (from Telugu industry), Aamir (from Hindi Industry), Upendra (from Kannada Industry), Soubin (from Malayalam Industry) joining Rajni and star director Lokesh Kanagaraj and going gaga about Rajni and his charisma and mania.   Going by stupendous success of Kamal’s Vikram, just ignoring the moderate hit of Leo, the expectation from this Rajni and Kanagaraj was sky high, but it turned out to be  extremely boring and disappointing stuff and will end up as most mediocre film by Lokesh Kanagaraj along with Leo.  

The challenge with Rajni and his directors for the last decade or so, being aged (74 years) he cannot play roles of around 40s and 50s years old and his fanatic fans are not ready to accept him in any other role than action hero and story writers and director struggle to come up with action movie in that age bracket.   So they are forced to churn out the same stuff, with same looks (the half grey beard), father or uncle role, a daughter or son and his issues with them, strong antagonists and support from top stars from different languages whether it makes any meaning or not.  

Its no different in Coolie.   The thin story line is something beaten to death for decades - hero taking revenge for killing of close one (this time a friend of over 30 years), and dragging it for 3 hours with no twists or turns.  

Lokesh Kanagaraj who developed Kamal’s, Sethupathi and Fahad roles so brilliantly in Vikram failed miserably to develop definite and impactful roles for Rajni, Nagarjuna, Upendra and Aamir.   So much was written about Nagarjuna antagonist role but it remained a half cooked half backed role, doing nothing bur boozing, smoking and brooding.  He is shown as a sophisticated villain, which he carried well, but with his weak voice and dialogue delivery Nagarjuna can never be a menacing villain.    Upendra was used in couple of action scenes towards end and Aamir Khan role is a straight lift and replica of Rolex cameo in Vikram done by Suriya.  But the surprise package has been Malayalee actor Soubin, who had meaty and lengthy role after Rajni.  Though he is short, bald unlike someone who looked likely to carry a pivotal role, but he got into the skin of the role and delivered a brilliant performance, whether its his comic touch, innocence, funny dance or menacing villainy – so many shades in one role.

Lokesh has so badly run out of ideas, that he pushes a stupid narration of the main villain who holds hundreds of labour at the port and does all kinds of illegal activities right from smuggling to organ racket, finds difficult to dispose of dead bodies of those killed by him and hires Satyaraj who makes an indigenous chair as a mobile electric crematorium.  For no rhyme or reason Satyaraj gets killed and for some time a suspense was maintained about who killed him.  After lot of emotional drama (a trauma for audience) between Rajni and Shruti Hassan (daughter of Satyaraj), who keeps insulting him due to misunderstanding, Rajni shadowing her to protect her from, the movie moves towards an uninspiring climax action scene full of blood and glory. 

There are overdoses of action scenes, which  the senior citizen Rajni is finding difficult to carry.   As always, he stands and keep waiving his hands and the goons keep flying all over breaking glasses, windows and all and sundry.  How long can such stuff be served as `action scenes’.   The less the better about his acting which is stereo typed specially for the last 10-15 years. Nagarjuna, Satyaraj (who did Kattappa role in Bahubali), Sruthi did their best, but they were let down by poorly written roles.   Soubin was at his best, but I felt as the role is written for Sethupathi, not sure whether he was ever considered for the role or not, but he would have taken the role to next level.   But Soubin has not disappointed, and this movie will improve his stock not only in Malayalam industry but in other south India industries too.

Anirudh music was enjoyable, specially the group song picturized on Rajni and the item number by Pooja Hegde.   BGM, specially in action scenes, was good. 

Overall, it’s a disappointing stuff from talented a highly rated Lokesh Kanagaraj.   But whether movie is good or bad, it may not make much difference to box office fortunes of Coolie like any other Rajni movie.   It is already reported that it had a fantastic 1^st day collection of over Rs 170 crores.   Even if it holds the opening day hype in the long weekend it may make over Rs. 500 crores by the first week end and bring profits to the producers.  

Go to watch if you are a diehard fan of Rajni, and also Nagarjuna and Soubin

S. Prabhakar

16.8.2025