Badrinath Review

When Conan the Barbarian and its other Avtaars made it to the B.O. it set the trend and the one serious complaint you can have is the time it took to influence Tollywood. Der aye durust aye.

          Badrinath is to show case the technical ageing of the cinema in Tollywood. Like many films before it, it is not designed to stimulate your thought process. Unpretentiously it is aimed at showcasing the hero and that it does with aplomb. Not courteous to sanity, it may be but it lives there in rich tradition. Manmohan Desai made a virtue of this kind of cinema where the ridiculous is heaped at you at such speed that you just give up sanity as a premise and begin to see cinema as a circus.  Fun is a euphemism in the context.

          This time round Allu Arjun lays bare his wares.  The script is so designed.  In fact the entire film is intended to show case the hero.  He does a Akshay Kumar (read top level stunts) and a Hrithik (read super dance).  This seems the only purpose of the film. The story line is a ruse. The narration a ploy.  Thrown into it are song and dream sequences that arrive any ten odd minutes and derail the script that any way is poor in content and interest. Add purpose and intelligence.

          It is strange that we see such products as entertainment.  To believe that we spend crores to make a film of this kind and believe that since the west does it we too should is a pathological problem. This needs attention.  In the context of Hazare and Baba Ramdev is this artistic freedom or is this a corruption of the art?  Is not corruption that wild, inexplicable exaggerated excursion from the mean?  Questions we do not ask.

          Badrinath is however is not without its moments. As the central piece, Allu Arjun stands out and justifies the confidence imposed in him.  Is this the coming of age? Has he finally pushed himself to league next with the film?  Truly shifting from the hesitant star actor pitch forked by various factors to a script he can himself handle and even overcome is the metamorphosis for any star.  He now has to be an actor. That is the next career challenge.

          In so far as the film is concerned, a song in the film sums it: “Kanu taruste Badrinath, Kanu mooste Badrinath”. Yes. Badrinath haunts.