Film: Operation Duryodhana
Rating: N/A
Banner: AIM
Cast: ‘Public Star’ Srikanth, Mumaith Khan, Chalapathi Rao, Kalyani, Ramananda Teertha, Krishna Bhagawan, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav, Lakshmi Pathi, MS Narayana, Dharmavarapu etc.,
Editing: Gowtham Raju
Camera: A Raja
Action: Vijay
Music: MM Sri Lekha
Story, Screenplay, Dialogues, Direction: Posani Krishna Murali
Release Date: 31st May 2007
Confusion, inconsistency, vagueness, ambiguity, unclear…the words would go on in flow to say about this film in one word.
Story:
Mahesh (Srikanth) is a CI who works with sincerity. H never bends to any political leader and also to his bosses (!) He also batters DSP once for supporting bad politicians. Obviously the unscrupulous politicians put Mahesh in trouble. They kill his family (Kalyani played wife) in a hard to believe way. They dress his wife and children with banners saying, “Muslims should quit India and live only in Pakistan” and then leave them in old city. Infuriated Muslims throw stones on that lady and children and kill them. Will people kill kids in that way without knowing who tied those banners to them? (Although it’s not convincing in the flow of screenplay, director can justify the same with the incident happened to Graham Steve and his family a few years ago!!!!).
Coming back to the story, CI Mahesh will also be battered by gundas. They think that he is dead. But he resurrects and tonsures his head and moustache. No one recognizes him in that get up. He changes his name as Bhagavanthudu, joins with a politician (Chalapathi Rao) and stays like a dog at his feet (symbolically Srikanth barks like dog to make audiences understand that he is like a dog at that politician. Is that not a height of symbolic creativity!!!!) This politician was a direct victim of the sincerity of CI Mahesh before. But he will not recognize him as he is tonsured!!!!!
Bhagavanthudu becomes MLA with the help of Ruchi Devi (Mumaith Khan) a king maker in ruling party where ministers also talk to her with fear. But the same Ruchi dances in a cabaret and entertains her party men!!! Confusion again? Yes, we are bound to that.
Finally Bhagavanthudu enlightens police, people and politicians in dramatic situations those lack conviction and material. In the climax, Bhagavanthudu resigns as MLA and joins as CI in police department again with the recommendation of Chief Minister.
That’s the outline of story.
Performances:
It’s needless to talk about performances of anyone in the film. Srikanth’s character itself is confused although there is a confession in the climax to recall that he is hero of the film.
Mumaith Khan is for glamour quotient and presents on screen only to dance for a couple of songs and get massaged with Srikanth.
Dharmavarapu, Krishna Bhagwan, MS Narayana, Brahmanandam, Venu Madhav and Lakhmipathi assumed that they did comedy but that ended up as a pale show bringing headache for audiences. We cannot blame them for that but Posani is answerable.
Simply to say, Posani scissored and operated the heads of audiences without any mercy and killed their interest to watch films for a few days.
The only dialogue that is sensible in the film is asking politicians to take appointment from people to meet them and solve their problems (like Prajalavaddaku Paalana).
Analysis:
The film starts with an interesting scene where Srikanth walks nude on roads of Hyderabad. There is no proper justification for that scene. After sometime, slowly we feel that the film is taking shape something on the lines of ‘M Dharma Raju MA’. But as the film completes rolling for 20 minutes, we will come to conclusion that ‘Operation Failure-Cinema Dead’. It’s hard to sit for second half in theater. But only the professional obligations like ‘writing reviews’ would forcibly keep a few in theaters.
Just a few hours before the release of the film someone said that Srikanth’s characterization will be like that of Saif Ali Khan in ‘Omkara’. But there is no resemblance to that film and it’s completely ‘original’. Srikanth portrayed a different role in it. Considering the theme of the film, it’s completely confused and erratic. Giving an ear to music, it’s completely cacophonous. We can really wonder how Sri Lekha gave such a pitiful music. Looking at the quality of re-recording and dialogues it’s like a C grade film dubbed from Malayalam or Kannada. Coming to the screenplay and direction it’s horrible and miserable. Posani Krishna Murali intended to tell everything he has in his mind within 2 hours. He tried to gush out all current affairs as single celluloid story.
This theme shouldn’t be made a film. It would get better response if it were made into a drama and played in Ravindra Bharathi. On a whole, it sounds to be a mere stage drama and strictly far from Cinema elements. Beaten track with routine set of gundas, political rowdies…..sincere police officer….. political rowdies harming him and later the same officer taking revenge is a known formula for Telugu audiences. The film simply runs on it added with confusion in screenplay and narration.
What the director wanted to tell is vague. At times he used symbolisms which are hard to digest in commercial cinema.
The review is written this way since the director released it as commercial cinema. It would have been different if the director said that it is not for commercial release but only made under the category of parallel cinema without any desire to earn money on it. Then critics would have shown consideration by understanding the romanticism in director’s head. But since it’s released as commercial cinema, there is no other way other than analyzing on these lines.
Bottom Line: Don’t put your heads in theatre for unnecessary operation
