Bhale bhale Magadevo:
“Where drama begins, logic ends.” Alfred Hitchcock. There is a lot of drama in
this Dasari Maruthi film which in other words suggests that there is very
little logic. The Bertie Wooster attempt gets flamboyant but soon contrived.
That perhaps is why Woodhouse retains his monopolistic space. In the context of
our cinema the theme would have offered the likes of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu
Chaterjee and Bapu a wonderful opportunity. Why? Simply because they saw from a
simple lenses, because exaggeration had its cinematic boundaries and when you
think simple you tell profound. Maruti however tries so frantically, humours
you in part and then sooner than you would like falls a prey to the final
diktat: the box office calling.
Built outside the predictable premise of the all talented hero – (read Mahesh
Babu,Pavan kalyan, NTR Jr. Ravi Teja et al) we have a protagonist who suffers a
near pathological disorder- memory failure. While he makes no bones about it in
the normal course , he disguises it with seeming altruism to impress upon his
lady love and conceals in the process his major weakness. Like Premchand’s
famous Gaban, one lie leads to another and he unconsciously is sitting on a
hill full of them.
He comes clean about it with his prospective pa-in-law Panduranga Rao (Murali
Sharma) , gets chided at home by Dad ( Naresh – in a clean cameo) forgets that
he is to meet his boss in hospital (Parchuri in a short appearance), our hero
Lucky (Nani) changes it all when he falls in love with marching good Samaritan
and Kuchupudi dance teacher Nandini (Lavanya Tripati). We then travel the usual
course, coffee shops and malls- the new temples of romance where cupid is
worshipped and dresses flaunted till a competing suitor in the form of a
villainous police officer (Ajay) enters the scene. Now we have good versus
evil. While Nandini is attracted to the charms and philanthropy of Lucky, she
is clueless that this is a product of his forgetfulness. On the other hand her
Dad cannot tolerate the outcome of the absentminded actions of Lucky. The tale
grows with one too many incidents to show how Nandini is ever impressed with
the hero in her life and a contrived conflict is built up to suggest that she
is to choose between the scheming police officer and smart but forgetful Lucky.
Are there no normal guys out there, you wonder! You just have to wait for the
hurriedly told finale – thanks for small mercies!!
The director misses out on a nice opportunity to tell a non-complicated tale.
He does half his job by choosing Nani as the protagonist. The hero delivers
without much ado and should take his body a tad more seriously. The rest of the
cast is the usual predictable stuff. However Vennela Kishore adds some fizz to
the goings on in the post interval story. Srinivas Reddy to makes a late
arrival and justifies his presence as does Praveen. Another worth mentioning
name is the heroine Lavanya Tripati who delivers a good polished performance.
Bhale Bhale may not be exclamatory but is not to be summarily rejected.
Rating: 2
+ the lead pair.
– Too formulastic.
L. Ravichander.