<i>Maharathi</i> Review

By Staff

Published: Monday, August 13, 2007, 15:30 [IST]

Friday, February 02, 2007
P Vasu gives a new lease of life to Balakrishna

The Balakrishna starrer Maharathi which had finished shooting more than three months ago suffered the labour pains for a long and finally saw the light on February 1. Directed by P Vasu, who had several hits to his credit including the blockbuster like Chandramukhi had wielded the megaphone for this flick. There are lots of expectations on the film as there are no notable hits for Balakrishna in the recent past. He is really craving for a hit. Maharathi will definitely give him a little solace, though it could not be counted as a big hit, it is better than his recent earlier films.

Balakrishna (Balakrishna) is the son of Sarala (Kovai Sarala), who runs a small tea bunk in a colony. Though Balakrishna is poor, he is rich in heart and will never spare any one who does injustice to the society or to the poor. He is so kind that he takes the blame of others and goes to jail for the sake of the others' benefit. Bhairavi (Sneha), whose mother Chamundeswari (Jayaprada) is in London reaches India to set up a dance and music school and stays in Padmavati Ladies Hostel near the colony where Balakrishna stays as her friends tell her that he is a good singer and dancer. Bhairavi falls in love with him. However, Chamundeswari who is proud and egoistic pretends that she accepted Bhairavi's love, but chides Sarala saying that she had resorted to male prostitution through her son. Perturbed over the comment, Sarala dies in a road accident. Learning that Sarala died due to her mother's attitude, Bhairavi also commits suicide. Balakrishna almost turns mad with the death of his mother and love. But he realizes that he should teach Chamundeswari a lesson. On the other side, Chamundeswari got married to Naresh Rayudu (Naresh), but gets separated from him due to her arrogance and divorces him. While they have two girl children, the elder girl Bhairavi stays with Chamundeswari, the younger one Kalyani (Meera Jasnmine) is with Rayudu. Balakrishna splits himself into two personalities as a singer Bala and joins Rayudu, while as Krish @ Krishna with Chamundeswari. He makes Kalyani to fall in love with him. However, she doesn't know that Bala and Krish are one at the same. As Bala encourages her, she goes to Krishna and tells him that she loves him. But Krish pretends that she is not love with him. As Kalyani demands her father to bring Krish, Rayudu has no option but to go to Chamundeswari, who runs a dance school in the nearby, where Krish was working as dance teacher, to plead with her to give Krish to him. Both Rayudu and Chamundeswari realize that Kalyani is in deep love with him, Balakrishna declares that he is none other than Balakrishna, but acted as Bala and Krish. Reminding that the same Chamundeswari had rejected him once, he reveals that the same person is pleading with him to marry her daughter. The film ends on a happy note with the union of both Rayudu and Chamundeswari and also Balakrishna and Kalyani.

Plus:
Balakrishna looked very smart in the film and in fact, the nice-looking Sneha looked a little fatty than him. Balakrishna also worked really hard for the film and the ease he showed in dance sequences prove the same. Both the heroines did their job pretty well by filling the glamour slots. Though reaches the middle age, Jayaprada proved that she could dance perfectly and performed Bharata Natyam with much Élan at the beginning of the film. It is one of the highlights of the film. Director Vasu and his directorial ability could be seen in every frame. The action scenes, which were meant to entertain the mass audiences were also shot pretty well. Screenplay of the film though not so tight, was good enough to make the audiences stay in seats.

Minus:
The screenplay again has to be said the minus point in the film. There are several lose ends in the screenplay. Especially, how does the second villain know the address of Chamundeswari. How Balakrishna knows that Bhairavi has a sister. When Chamundeswari takes Sarala many people bear witness to it but they tell Balakrishna that his mother is missing. The Sudeepa love episode was also not established properly. Comedy took backseat in the film as there is very little scope for comedy and audience had no scope to relax and laugh heartily.

Remarks:
Music by Kannada music director Gurukiran is good and has good mass beat. A couple of songs are based on melody. Cinematography by Sekhar V Joseph is okay, while editing by Suresh Urs is not bad. As a whole the film is worth watching once for the sake of Balakrishna. Balakrishna played a character which had three different dimensions. Jayaprada, who restarted her innings with this film did justice to her character. In fact, she is the best choice, as there are no woman artistes, who could show arrogance in their acting. She almost played a role similar to the one played by Vanishree in Bobbili Raja of Venkatesh.

Cast : Balakrishna, Sneha, Meera Jasmine, Jayaprada, Naresh, Kovai Sarala, Pradeep Rawat, Venumadhav, Satyam Rajesh, Sutti Velu, Gautamraju, Lakshmipati, Srinivasa Reddy, Anant, Jayaprakash Reddy, Ashokkumar, Ali, Navneet Kaur, Sudeepa, Geeta Singh and others.

Credits :
Story and dialogues - Thotapalli Madhu
Cinematograph - Shekhar V Joseph
Editing - Suresh Urs
Action - Dalapati Dinesh
Presents - Rangana Adiseshaiah
Producer - Vakada Appa Rao
Direction - P Vasu