Gowri Review

I'll rip you to shreds with my bare hands and feed you to the dogs on the street, you curdling bucket of slime.

Every hero of a Telugu movie utters these words in some form or the other; this happens to be the most crucial dialogue of any film. It's that shining moment when all the audience gets a taste of what it must be like to be a hero. We all imagine our favourite baddie in the role of the villain - a politician, a neighbour, an eve-teaser, an autowallah, and us shaking our finger in his/her face in measured tones of menace, and saying those exact same words. With spit spraying softly over the listener's face. Mind it.

Gowri (Sumanth) is like all other heroes and he does the rip-shreds-bare-hands routine a lot. But the difference here is that he only does it when all other forms of communication have closed down. As an unassuming mechanic of Dhoolpet, his philosophy is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But the world makes it difficult for a man to go about greasing his axles and doing his ciggie tricks in peace.

First they throw a girl at him, with considerable force. Sweta (Charmy) totters about like the top-heavy nymphet she is, and soon Gowri is madly in love. Then, just as he throws himself at her feet, she turns around, sticks both thumbs in her ears and waggles her fingers seductively.

What does this mean? Does she love him? Does she hate him? Is she mental? No, it's actually option four: she's playing him like a fool. But instead of falling for her tricks like any garden-variety moron, Gowri shames her by delivering a keynote address on the sanctity of pure love and its strange, but wonderful, manifestations. She's shaken and hugs him fiercely to indicate that there are no hard feelings. But, alas, this embrace lands the young couple the wrath of Sweta's millionaire father, whose millions mean nothing to him if he can't ensure his daughter's unhappiness.

Toward this end, Sweta's father hires political assassin and general odd-job guy, Sarkar, to tear the lovers apart, first through non-violent means, and then through non-non-violent means. This makes up the rest of the story. You might have gathered at this point that Gowri, as a story, is about as original as Anu Malik, as a composer. But what works in the film's favor is its strong sense of what will get the crowds whistling like an excitable pressure cooker. The comedy wheezes along, and those parts of the movie that don't have someone getting his arm wrenched out are sprinkled with feel-good philosophy and old-fashioned family values.

For Gowri is not your regular hero, he can do more than just rip people to shreds with his bare hands. He's also a sensible guy, who believes that no marriage should occur without the consent and blessings of the respective families. He doesn't believe in beating anybody up just for the heck of it, unless the script demands it. He's a friend's friend and a foe's foe. He's also a man's man and a mechanic's mechanic. And, underneath it all, he's just a guy, like you and me. If you and me could kick butt, while at the same time instructing it in the valuable lessons of life.