Kannada Movie Review: Mylari

Complete family entertainer from Shivanna!

I have said in this blog and elsewhere time and again that since the early 2000s the quality of Sandalwood movies has significantly improved. There is some real meat in the story, there are great and truly hummable songs without any double meaning. Then of course the acting and direction seems to have matured. Then of course there are a brood of imported heroines from other states who are vying for top spot in Sandalwood. All this means good entertainment for the average cine-goer in Karnataka. Hopefully now Kannadigas will start watching Kannada movies instead of patronizing other language movies.

Anyway coming to this movie, the central character Mylari (Shivrajkumar) is the older son of a rural farmer. He is not interested in studies and his father has to continuously coax, threaten, beat, plead with him to go to school. On the contrary his younger brother is a brilliant student who is doing great in school. This of course leads to discrimination from father and illtreatment of the older son. Then there is Anitha the heroine who is the village headman's daughter. She goes to the same school as Mylari and both of them are in love from childhood but neither has the courage to express it. So Mylari does the best he can, he writes his feelings in the form of poetry, and prose literature and becomes a great poet. His father of course doesn't appreciate it.

Finally one day Mylari comes to know that Anitha is getting engaged to someone else and takes the step to express his love. This leads to lot of complications and results in getting him thrown out of the house. He ends up in Bangalore and there starts the real saga. He hooks up with his old friend who has become a famous journalist in Bangalore. The latter gets him a job as a journalist/ writer and then the trouble starts. As a press reporter Mylari breaks some important stories against prominent political figures. The political leader threatens Mylari's friend and since nothing comes out of it he eliminates the entire family.

An enraged Mylari goes on a killing spree and eliminates the politician and his henchmen. Then he is arrested and sentenced to death by hanging. The entire story is said as a flash back. It is definitely worth watching and can be watched with the whole family. There are some real touching scenes in the movies, that have been excellently executed by the main actors.

Kannada Movie Review: Buddhivanta

Laughter Riot
 
Upendra starrer Buddhivanta (2008) is a movie in which Upendra has lucidly executed his role. The movie starts off with several people coming to lodge complaints with the police against one individual who has cheated their sisters off the money by entering into a fake marriage with them. When they compare the pictures of the complainant all of them have the same picture. The police are convinced that they are dealing with the same person who is masquareding as different individuals and taking the people for a ride. They are hot on pursuit for this individual. There is a bus accident and all the passengers are admitted into the hospital, when police come to investigate they find the culprit among the injured. The police arrest the accused and present him to court.
 
The rest of the movie is a courtroom drama with Upendra the hero effectively arguing his case against all the women. The judge played by Lakshmi has pretty much no role except to sit there and watch. The heroine Pooja Gandhi also doesn't have much role except for running behind Upendra like a mad woman. Towards the end of the movie it is revealed who Upendra really is and why he went into disguise and what he hoped to achieve by doing what he did.
 
I would say this is a complete family entertainer with a generous dose of comedy included. It is totally watchable once.

Sankranti Greetings

Last week was Makara Sankranti or Pongal festival in India and across the world. I would like to recall a song in Kannada Movie Halli Meshtru in which the hero and heroine sing a duet on the occasion of this festival. This song only shows the enjoyment and fun aspect of the festival in rural Karnataka. The spiritual and learning aspect has been completely ignored.

Saradara Kannada Movie Review

Kannada film industry seems to be getting more and more mature. The films are getting better and there is a distinctively different storyline in many of the movies I have watched. I don't know whether the movies are being remade from other languages or they are originally conceptualized for Sandalwood. Saradara, starring Darshan is a movie with a difference. The storyline is well narrated and it upholds the traditional Indian values of family, marriage and how things work in rural India.

Darshan plays the hero with Srinivasa Murthy, Lokesh and Tara rendering excellent support for the storyline. Maada (Darshan) is an orphan whose mother would have given him to the temple priest and breathed her last. He is raised by the village and he works for the village headman. The village headman's daughter falls in love with Maada and then the twist happens. The twist that leads to several things, more and more sadness, sorrow and grief for Maada.

Throughout the movie the importance of respecting elders, and parents is emphasized. This is much like Darshan's previous movies he seems to be taking up movies in which respect to elders is the subtle message. I guess it comes right in time when young people are abandoning their parents in favor of career and other pressing priorities. I do hope the film industry continues to get better and the social message affects today's youngsters.

Kannada Movie Review: Chandu

Kannada film industry went through a transformation with the advent of younger (now older) stars such as Ramesh, Sudeep, Darshan, Puneeth Rajkumar, and others. One of the initial movies of Sudeep is Chandu, a romantic love story with several twists, a little bit of action. This movie helped establish Sudeep as a hero in Sandalwood - Kannada film industry.

Anyway the story of this movie is pretty straight forward. Sudeep is a n angry young man living in Hyderabad, he beats up the local don and his brother and during the street fight is when he encounters the heroine for the first time. His parents fearing for his life send him to Bangalore to live with his sister, whose house is incidentally next to a ladies hostel, where the heroine lives.

Invariably both of them end up in the same college, become friends and later lovers. A small altercation leads to the lovers fighting and getting separated. The rest of the movie shows how each of them behave and finally marry each other. The movie highlights Sudeep's performance as a carefree young man with a romantic heart and a short-tempered, and stubborn heroine who finally caves in and marries him.

In short it is a highly entertaining movie totally family friendly. It is more than ten years old so you will have to find the movie in a DVD format or online on Youtube.

Movie Review: Venkata In Sankata

Laughter all the way
Cast: Ramesh Arvind, Mukhyamantri Chandru, Umashree and others;
Director: Ramesh Arvind

All through my college days I would hear about the loss of quality in the Kannada cinema. I was never a big time movie watcher and hence it didn't do much to change my opinion. Now after coming to the US I actually started watching movies of all types, primarily out of boredom. Being a poor student I can't afford to do many of the cool things such as bowling, going to the movies, eating out, etc. So what is the best form of entertainment. Yes watching movies on youtube. As I watched English, and Hindi movies I decided to look for recent Kannada movies and watch them.

Yesterday I watched this notoriously hilarious Kannada movie Venkata in Sankata. Out of the 2 hr 21 minutes, if I said I laughed for 2 hrs it would not be false. The movie is completely funny and every scene has a bit of humor. Ramesh is a great actor and he has proved that he is a great director too.

The movie traces the professional life and adventures of police sub inspector Venkata whose fate always seems to be against him. His colleague somehow always seems to take credit for his actions and a frustrated Venkata is yearning to do something about it.

There is a terrorist attack in the city and Venkata is assigned the case. The way he goes about doing it and win forms the gist of the story. In between there is the heroine and few songs which add the necessary "oomph" factor to the movie. Even without these added gimmicks the movie is a good entertainer.

If you have lost hope about Kannada Cinema, watch this and I am sure you will change your opinion.