Pustakamlo Konni Pagelu Missing Telugu Movie Review

This is supposedly an experimental film. It is an experiment on our nerves. There is a mega question thrown at you: What is worse? The formulistic Telugu film of unbelievable heroes, damsel heroines and un-kept villains or these experimental films with unknown actors, half baked ideas and poorly executed scripts. For the audience it is a no-win situation.
The film-maker ends up with a product that would warrant knuckle-raps at a film institute and a cold shoulder at the Box Office.
In all earnestness a film with a whole lot of debutants starts off on unknown territory. Viewed from the prospect of intent the film loiters there. It is inexplicable that a tale about short term amnesia is dealt with amateur casualness. The brief story, screenplay and direction leaves you yawing and wondering whether the film-maker himself suffers any similar disorders. No research, no credibility, no serious punch, no serious storytelling moments, no serious actors to carry a weak script and yet a film.
Our hero Vijay (Sree) is with 3 friends Shiva (Rahul Mani), Balaji (Satish) and Saleem (Mast Ali). Google search for anything about “actors”, and if you are lucky you may get some bits. Perhaps LinkdIn. The guys on the eve of Vijay’s wedding to Sandhya (Supraja) are angry, frustrated, grumbling and get to play cricket. Vijay has a fall leading to ‘short-term memory loss’. Believe me the guys do not realise the acute medical emergency and are amused at Vijay repeatedly reiterating what has just happened in his life. However he is supposed to be suffering from immediate short-term amnesia. Don’t ask how then does he remember. This is among many licences the film-maker takes with the script, logic and audience. With the wedding hour creeping near, the friends decide to go through with the schemes to keep the accident under wraps. The conspirators hope and successfully get Vijay through the reception and wedding ceremony and back to the hospital for a quick cure in time. As conspiratory lunacy looms large, the narration falters and you get a distinct feeling that you are witnessing a primary school “Parents’ Day Drama”. To me, it was even more so as the audience in the theatre included members of the cast and crew who would laugh at jokes which a fowl full of feathers wouldn’t tickle me into.
An occasional one liner on an incidental repartee is all that the film manages to assemble. In case this is well intentional I’m left searching for the ‘well’ part. The treatment is the first in the list of bottlenecks. A director’s challenge is often in translating the perception. Here is a case where the perception itself is suspect. He seems to have picked four guys, (wrong time too) gets the cameraman to shoot at will, his principle actors to behave as they like and hurriedly sums it up with a thread like euphemistically called “the story”. The director, therefore, is not the salvaging unit of these missing pages.
The cast is inspired by the director, or are products of his contagious spirit. While Rahul Mani makes a sincere effort as the influence yielding friend, Mast Ali looks too old to be cast in the role of the youngster. Sree in the central character is lost and beyond hope. The heroine has all but five minutes. Your popcorn packet will last longer in the theatre than her presence in the film. Not that in those fleeting moments she demands any attention.
You need huge dollops of courage to make a film in such environs. Or you must be damnably well ________. The audience is a textbook case of gullible victims.
In this case ‘a few pages going missing’ you wish the whole script went missing.