Baava Nachchaadu Review

Tollywood has a rather irksome formula that it seems to fall back on whenever it is found wanting on any original idea. And since the latter happens quite frequently, we have this formula, which actually borders on the immoral, bombard us in almost every movie featuring a mass star.

The formula goes like this: the salability of the film is directly proportional to the number of babes that the hero gets to prance around with. And when the theme of the film is as hackneyed as this formula itself, with a wafer thin story line pulled to the point of snapping both itself and the viewers' tempers, one wonders whether 'Yuvasamrats' like Nagarjuna believe in giving their fans something different to cherish.

The story is guessable from the title itself because this is an industry that gives as many amoral angles as it can to the otherwise healthy relationship of the 'Bava' and the 'Maradalu'. Ajay (Nagarjuna), an adman, decides to marry a village belle Meenakshi (Simran) because he likes simplicity in a woman. That's the first cliché among several to come.

The wife has a coquettish sister, Lahari (Reema Sen), who believes that a skirt is the only defining characteristic of a modern woman. The elder one dotes on her sister, and some flashbacks show the degree of this adoration between the two.

This is from where the formula starts taking the center stage. The sister falls for her baava's charm and appeal, and when the elder sister slaps her for nurturing such thoughts in her mind, even attempts suicide.

This scares the elder into deciding to marry her to Nag too, much to his chagrin. Her logic is that bigamy is okay since Lord Venkateshwara, Lord Kartikeya and many other gods have multiple wives. And this is the logic that our filmmakers too have been following in making such formula films - drawing moral substantiation from the actions of celestials.

The rest of this film deals with how Nag solves this predicament. And his method of solving is rather loud and irritating. Amidst all this is the usual comedy track that induces forced laughter. This includes a rather inane character who keeps cleaning his 2-year-old son's posterior throughout the film. People laughed at that too.

We also have Suman Ranganathan whose character is as necessary to the plot as a bicycle is to a fish. Since there are three non-Telugu heroines, there should have been some effort on the dubbing front, at least. But sadly, some inept dubbing makes it appear like the actresses' performances are bad.

Neither reviews nor even the quality of the film will deter Nag's fans from making it a hit anyway. And our film industry will take it as another example of the omnipotence of star charisma, and will continue to seek support from formulae. Where do all those smart FTII grads go?