Producers have started pushing the box-office boundaries of Kannada films. It takes guts to invest in a big budget film given the limited reach. Reliable ‘rumours’ say the budget of ‘KGF’ starring Yash has crossed 40 crores. It’s the star’s dream to break barriers and make people across the country watch Kannada films. The first step has been to tie up with Farhan Akhtar’s production company to help distribute the film in Mumbai. Like always some are praying for the film’s success while others will host parties if it fails. That’s how the film industry works. Comparatively ‘Villain’ was considered a safer proposition. A conservative estimate of the budget pegs it at 30 crores. The presence of two superstars act as a buffer taking their collective fans into account, the curiosity factor and the telecast and digital rights the film would fetch. Without going into figures that are always debatable the film was ‘safe’ even before the first show. The stage was set with four holidays, astronomically priced tickets and Shivanna urging fans not to fight. It was clear the expectations were based on star power rather than Prem’s abilities as a director. Feedback trickling in from the early morning shows was something that can happen only in cinema. The film is bad but the collections are extraordinary! It will tank on Monday was the consensus.
Very few single screens have survived on the once bustling KG road but producers vie for them. Santosh and Nartaki are the most sought after and in the clutches of big ticket distributors. Two towering hoardings, exactly the same height of Sudeep and Shivanna greet you with equal number of garlands. Physical height doesn’t count here. Fans are busy taking selfies. Surprisingly, there’s a slightly shorter version of Ragini Dwivedi facing Santosh. Yes, she has a release clashing with the superstars. Monday is considered as a crucial box-office barometer. Balcony ticket prices for the morning show are a historical 200 rupees but the queue is serpentine. Once awarded the best theatre in Asia, Nartaki today reflects the state of most single screens. The once cushiony carpet is worn out, the toilet stinks and the seats are rock hard. You forget all when the shrill whistling welcomes the stars. It’s two weeks now since the film was released and the verdict is out. Collections slid drastically after five days. The producer and the distributors have not lost money but the collections are not even close to half of the one hundred crores predicted.
Most South Indian directors want to make a ‘Bahubali’ which broke linguistic barriers and box-office records. Director Prem always dreams big and planned a mythological magnum opus with Shivanna and Sudeep with the support of producer Manohar. The budget was pegged at 100 crores so obviously things didn’t fall in place. When I watched Sudeep in a song sequence from ‘Villain’ with unkempt mane, a weird hat, donning an outlandish costume, swinging a cane and swaying gently it reminded me of Sunjay Dutt’s ‘Khalnaayak’ released a quarter of a century ago. Co-incidentally I heard a nugget from a very reliable source. Sudeep is a fan of the film, so he summons Prem and asks him to make something similar and somehow fit in Shivanna since he has the call-sheets. I hope you’ve noticed the similarity in title.
Anyway, the original is about an inspector played by Jackie Shroff capturing the gangster Sunjay Dutt to pry out information about his boss. Gangster escapes and inspector is humiliated. Enter inspector’s girlfriend who goes undercover to help but realises gangster is golden hearted. Gangster falls for her but is livid when he finds out she’s a cop. Meanwhile humiliated cop meets gangster’s mom and realises he’s a childhood chum. Well you can’t have Shivanna and Sudeep fall for the same girl so Prem shampoos Shivanna’s wig from ‘Jogi’ makes him wear it and turns him into a feared local rowdy who wields the ‘long’ like none other. He bumps into Sudeep’s estranged mother and swears he’ll re-unite them. There was a semblance of a story in ‘Khalnayak’ but don’t expect anything here. Prem is weighed down by the screen time, songs and the number of punches and punch lines he has to distribute equally between the two stars. The fans are watching and counting. Every single sequence is puerile while the computer graphics are absolutely amateurish. Bodies are flung around when they’re not being sliced up. You wonder why a gang snatches a chain that looks like it’s made of steel resulting in an endless chase. It’s just to show Shivanna is still sprightly. The stars breakout of jail and in a jiffy are playing hide and seek on bustling Trafalgar Square. A British minister speaks with an accent that’s anything but English and a BBC newsreader has a Chinese accent. The sequence where Shivanna hijacks an undertrail from a police vehicle has to be seen to be believed. It’s inadvertently hilarious. A friend has vowed to watch the film again just for that sequence.
Of course, like in all Prem’s movies there’s the ‘avva’ clutching a bag searching for her ‘kanda’ she’s ironically abandoned. Shivanna is his casual uncomplicated self. Sudeep is dressed like a truck driver with a stole tied around his head in the first half. He flies to London and sports long, streaked mane and the most ill-fitting and outlandish of costumes. He poses, pauses, puffs at a cigarette, scratches his temple and bends like his spine has given way before finishing the most inane of dialogues. You want to hold him by the scruff and say, ‘Get on with it man.’ Amy Jackson is there to reiterate our audience’s fascination for fair skin. If you are hard of hearing after watching the film, feel free to sue Arjun Janya who has someone shrieking ‘Ravanaaa’ continuously in the background.
Expectations were whipped up about who the villain in the movie would be, Sudeep or Shivanna. Genuine lovers of Kannada cinema will tell you it’s Prem whose name appears as Prem’s with a tiny pink heart in the place of the apostrophe. The producer should thank his stars for recovering his money but the film pushes down the standard of Kannada cinema by many a notch. There’s an abject disregard for the audience’s intelligence and sensibilities but sometimes you get what you deserve!
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