A Shyam Gopal Varma Film Review

There are two kinds of disasters.  Films that bare their follies and idiocies from the start especially because the director has no ability or will or both to (mis)lead the audience into believing that there is a story that will unfold in the last reels.  The second category is where the director is, unfortunately, a bit talented to project a farce in a misleadingly interesting manner, only to reveal the storyline as a damp squib in the climax.  The latter category is more irritating than the former.

Rakesh Srinivas develops what might have been a trivial private conversation among juvenile college students into a feature film.  Shafi plays director Shyam Gopal Varma, his filmi journey as well as some of his mannerisms bear resemblance to the self-styled maverick RGV.  If his weird storylines can make producers literally shed tears, praising him as a never-seen-before creator, his repartees and attitude make him a brand unto himself.  His life takes a turn for the bad when he is kidnapped by an unidentified person and left to fend for himself for weeks inside a large room in the thick of a forest.

SGV has to find a way out of the situation and if can’t, he will die of hunger and thirst soon after the rice exhausts.  A good part of the film is about what thoughts cross his mind when he undergoes terrifying deathly experience during those days.  Who wants him die after subjecting him to sadistic torture?  How does the chained SGV escape from the forest?  How does he catch hold of the mystery man?  That forms the second half.

Besides displaying a knack for pulling wool over our eyes and executing a few scenes well (thanks mainly to the BGM), the director doesn’t come out with flying colours in delivering an insubstantial idea.  Some elements like SGV’s muse, who is the director’s most-preferred actress, don’t have any relevance for the story, not even their placement makes any sense.  What is definitely true-to-life is that SGV reads Ayn Rands and Nietzsche but pens crazy ideas like ‘Cheema – The Don’.  SGV, whose resemblance to a living character may NOT be a co-incidence, is unintentionally depicted as a pseudo-intellectual and that’s one element which is likeable.

The comedy portions involving Jayaprakash Reddy (the typical low-brow TFI producer with an irresistible taste for soft porn), Narsing Yadav (who thinks of Ayn as a ‘he’ and Nietzsche as a ‘she’), Ali’s brother and his sidekick serve to parody reality rather than add any value to the narration.

A good number of parodic titles like Raktaniki Raktam, Shivaram, Nene Dayyanni, Jangrila are there, apart from some serious-sounding questions to SGV, to remind us of some real-life character and his ‘profound’ philosophy.  What is a blessing is that the film doesn't indulge the pseudo-intellectual convictions of the accidental icon from whom the lead man derives his template.

Besides taking apologetic potshots at Stubborn Someone, the director manages to mock at yesteryear TFI’s veterans playing 20-somethings in now-laughable revenge-senti dramas (Prithvi Raj and late Shakuntala entertain in this scene).  One Jaggu here (this one holidays in Bangkok for 360 days and shoots a film in the remaining 5 days), another KK there, not to forget a glam doll saying ‘Shyamu uncle must go to Hollywood’ while talking to the media, are good.

What makes the film all the more crazy is that SGV’s nightmarish experience when he is kidnapped is downright unsavory, especially because the idea is ultimately proven vacuous and the character bears resemblance to a real-life individual.

Shafi is surprisingly good; he is one actor who has been under-utilized.

Verdict: A joke of a film that never deserved to be developed into a feature film.  It was best suited to be a short film and that might have had many social media enthusiasts view this low-brow idea with some compassion, bestowing undeserved attention on it.

Rating: 1/5