Mesthri – Review

Dasari Narayana Rao after a gap of more than five years, is back with a film Mesthri bearing the political backdrop. Invariably the film has some satires on all the political parties. He has tried to mix up Bobbili Puli story and diluted it in a different way to suit the present trend.

Major Viswanatham (Dasari Narayana Rao) is fond of his student and colleague in the Army, Major Devaraj (Mohanbabu). Major Devaraj, a Dalit by caste was honoured with the Shaurya Chakra by the President for his courage. The government allots five acres of land to Devaraj, but it is usurped by Bhupati"s family, the notorious land grabbers. Devaraj goes to Bhupati"s house with his daughter Jhansi (Sujita) to get the land back, but gets killed in the hands of land mafia. Major Viswanatham meets a minister for justice but to no avail. He comes to know that politicians and land grabbers are hand in glove with each other.

Major Viswanatham decides to take revenge personally and joins as a port worker by name Palakollu. He ensures justice to many port workers and provides them all the basic amenities while maintaining loyalty with the management. The port workers get housing sites with the help of Dayanidhi (Vijayiumar), a Sarvodaya leader. Palakollu mistakes Dayanidhi to be a Gandhian, who is actually the kingpin behind the entire land mafia. How Palakollu teaches Dayanidhi a lesson and how he helps the port workers have to be seen on screen.

PLUS: Dasari Narayana Rao who plays the title role has done complete justice to the role. The motto with which he has penned the story is very good. The first half of the film goes well with the script running in a perfect manner. Though he appears in a couple of scenes Mohanbabu has done a dignified role and his declaration and dialogues on Dalits are quite inspiring. Srihari"s character seems unnecessary though it helps the lead role in the climax. It could have been played by any other artiste, but Srihari has maintained dignity in portraying and performing the role. There is no heroine in the film and Sujitha has filled the gap by appearing in a couple of scenes. All the songs were scripted to suit the theme,most of them are situational.

MINUS: After the interval bang, Dasari appears to have succumbed to some pressures and has made some modifications in the story commenting about parties and the story is stretched unnecessarily. Sayaji Shinde has played a comedy villain while Pradeep Rawat"s villainy is also wasted. Comedy track with MS Narayana and Kondavalasa has failed to evoke any laughter. Action scenes are too cinematic and beyond logic. Camera work by Ch Ramana Raju is average.

REMARKS: It is not new for the Telugu audiences for such a political satires were there earlier too. However, this time, Dasari Narayana Rao has turned his guns at Praja Rajyam with a couple of direct satires on Chiranjeevi for displaying the portraits of great leaders on his party walls, for raising the social justice theme and for colecting huge amounts to allocate party tickets for MP and MLA seats. Despite the statement by Dasari that he would not stoop to the level of throwing satires on other parties, he has done that under some circumstances. However, some songs were exclusively aimed at playing satires on Telugu Desam and Praja Rajyam. The song on the value of 'vote" has definitely made everyone rethink.

Cast: Dasari Narayana Rao, Srihari, Dr Mohanbabu, Vijaykumar, Chandramohan, Sutti Velu, Sayaji Shinde, Giribabu, Gauthamraju, Vizag Prasad, MS Narayana, Kondavalasa Lakshmana Rao, Sujitha and others.

Credits: Music – Vandemataram Srinivas, Camera – Ch Ramana Raju, Editing – Gauthamraju, Story and screenplay – Dasari Narayana Rao, Presents – Dasari Padma, Producer – K Ramakrishna Prasad, Direction – Suresh Krissna.

Banner: Siri Media Pvt Ltd.

Released on: March 12, 2009