Bore to the Core

It gets increasingly difficult to be kind to the indulgence of filmmakers who put their half-baked ideas alongside money and raw stock. Cinema elsewhere is showing signs of change, fresh thoughts and ideas, not to mention very interesting style and approach. Tollywood has displayed resilience against the said changing scenario. It has instinctively or judiciously chosen to tread the beaten track and fill its narratives with formulaic storylines and treatment. Cinema here revolves round the star and thereby meaning by default that the image is created, nurtured and perpetuated. At the other end is the formula of getting aspirants

(including children and siblings of the established stars) with the hope that the script for their graduation to success is this, and that the hit that adds the new entrant into the hall of fame is just a Friday away. Often all these attempts fail to have even a minimum template to make a successful film leave alone a good film.

This Allu Sirish-Regina Cassandra film is yet another outing in hope and not an investment in talent. Director Maruthi works around this new pair and strains to keep the viewer engaged for the 150 and odd minutes bargained for. If the sweltering heat is an excuse to get into the theatre, you realise you have not made the best choice.

The tragedy doubles when the filmmaker also decides to message-ify his film and goes about telling you what is good in life and for the nation. The yawn-filled stance adds to a very confused take - Biblical, romantic, vengeful and humorous. With an end product that is puerile, you know the filmmaker has indifference writ large for him.

Sirish (Allu Sirish) loves himself and is unapologetic about being selfish (Not the virtuous selfishness which is a huge philosophy, but of the very crass and lets-steel-a-free-dinner type). He makes a career of this and is soon invited by media magnate (Rao Ramesh). The offer to work in the creative wing of the TV channel is also for Suvarna (Casandra Regina) who is just like Sirish - the calculative type who makes the most of others. The duo become a team and plan a reality show – ‘Kotha Janta’ – to get people married on the sets of their show. Unfortunately for them the first couple includes a girl who is none other than the sister of the local minister who is also a goonda.

Now we have another business magnate in Posani Krishna Murali wanting to start another channel with Suvarna. To ensure that Suvarna says yes to the indecent offer, Sirish feigns love. Smart Suvarna turns naïve and then we are told how hell knows no fury than the woman scorned! Obviously many many reels later, the two are going to get together. How boringly they get to the altar and how bogged down the script is with inefficiency is what the 150 minutes is all about. The crew and the cast need to take themselves seriously and stop being props in the large abetted stance of the filmmaker. Regina Casandra looks a perfect cross between Vijayshanti and Illeana and brings nothing of herself on screen. Yet she adds the required glamour quotient to the film. Allu Sirish – if only acting was a genetic character that could be inherited! The one bright spot in all this is perhaps the comedy track involving comedian Saptagiri but that can be watched on a TV comedy show and is simply not enough to take you to the theatres. ‘Kotha Janta’ is nothing new and gets uncharitably trite in a while.