Gajibiji Review

It is quite surprising that a director, who had 42 films to his credit is making an attempt in his own production, sans a perfect story. As the title suggests, the entire film is haphazard and has literally nothing to talk about. Despite having a huge star cast, with a whole lot of senior comedians, the director is unable to reap good entertainment and almost groped in the dark. Though there is a hero and heroine, they just remain namesake and hardly appear on the screen and shake legs and vanish.

There is an industrialist who has a big bungalow in Hyderabad. He keeps one Kasi Viswanath as caretaker of his house and leaves for the US and settles there. However, the caretaker dies and his nephew (menalludu) Chintu (Venumadhav) takes over the building and rent it out to four families. One family is headed by Pekata Papa Rao (MS Narayana). His son Prabhu (Prabhakar) and daughter-in-law, both are employees and the man is a hen-pecked husband. Prabhu has a brother (Yashwant) who is fond of photography. So the wife looks her father-in-law very mean, but he never cares. Another portion is occupied by a factionist, the third one is being occupied by a former film actor (Balayya). His daughter (Farjana) works in a bank, his son (Raghubabu) craves to become a film hero. There is another portion occupied by a middle-class family. The man (Brahmanandam) who heads the family, marries his daughter (Hema) to a boy (Krishna Bhagawan), by making a false claim that he owned the house. Prabhu falls in love with the actor's daughter and appeals to her to act as his model. Though she refuses his offer in the beginning, she agrees after seeing his honesty. She too accepts his love. At this juncture one Munna (Ali) comes to the house claiming that the house belongs to him. Chintu welcomes him and at one stage, he gets a doubt, where Munna is going when he gets a phone call. He comes to know that Munna is not the real owner and the actual owner is in hospital. In fact, Munna is a petty thief and he tries to steal the brief case of Bhupati Raja (Kota Srinivasa Rao) who is hit by a trunk box accidentally and loses consciousness and suffers amnesia. So, he admits Bhupati Raja in hospital and comes to the bungalow on his name. Here there is another twist that Bhupati Raja has a step brother (Kota Srinivasa Rao), who is searching for his father to take revenge against him for deserting his mother. He finds Bhupati Raja in the hospital and he too reaches the bungalow claiming that he is the Bhupati Raja. Munna, who knows that he is not Bhupati Raja, warns him and all the three Chintu, Munna and Bhupati Raja's step brother decide to sell off the property and share the booty. At this juncture, Bhupati Raja regains his knowledge and recovers from amnesia rushes to the house. When his step-brother attempts murder, Bhupati Raja reveals that he has come to give the property to him. So the film ends on a happy note.

PLUS: The only plus point in the film is the glamour of Farzana. As usual she is quite liberal in exposure of her beauties. The cinematographer has tried his best to portray her beauty on the screen, especially during the songs. Comedy by Kota Srinivasa Rao, MS Narayana and Raghubabu is just okay. Venumadhav and Ali have given their best of performance in the film. Yashwant, though this is his second or third film, still have to learn a lot and shed a lot of weight. The director tries his best to expose how the gullible artistes get cheated by people in the film industry.

MINUS: As the title rightly suggests, the movement of the story is quite haphazard. Though there is a hero and heroine there is no prominence for them, as the entire story revolves around three characters, Ali, Venumadhav and Kota Srinivasa Rao (in dual roles). Comedy by other artistes including seniors like Brahmanandam, Krishna Bhagawan, Costumes Krishna, Ram Jagan, Uttej, Harshavardhan have failed to tickle the funny bone. With no gripping story and awful screenplay, the audiences will not understand what is happening on the screen and who is the real hero in the film. Neither the songs, nor its tunes are melodious, but are literally used to attract the mass audiences with the heroine's exposure of glamour. Even the voice dubbed to her is very dramatic and has no depth in it. The director could not establish some characters. The climax is further atrocious, as the director made the audiences fools by enacting a bank robbery drama.

REMARKS: It is once again proved that bringing out a film totally based on comedy is not that easy and one need good time sense and comedy timing to tickle the funny bone. Mere experience in films would also not fetch knowledge and the director cum producer have failed to catch the pulse of audiences.

Cast: Yashwant, Farjana, Ali, Venumadhav, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Brahmanandam, MS Narayana, AVS, Raghubabu, Krishna Bhagawan, Jeeva, Costumes Krishna, M Balaiah, Gundu Hanumantha Rao, Ram Jagan, Uttej, Prabhakar, Harshavardhan, Chitram Sreenu and others

Credits: Story and dialogues – Satyanand, Music – Vandemataram Srinivas, Camera – B Lokeswara Rao, Fights – Ram Laxman, Art – Mohan Talluri, editing – V Nagireddy, Direction and production – K Vasu.

Banner: Gayatri Arts

Released on: August 8, 2008