One of us went to meet the
Chintamani
distributor on the eve of its release for some info, and found him and his staff
offering the most heartfelt of prayers for its success - vermilion, coconut, priest...
the works. Our dude kept a straight face, then came back and cribbed how you couldn't
have stereotypes for anything anymore. Well, we told him, remember what the mythological
crab told the sage Durvasa?
The prayers do seem to have worked. There's a 'hot' new star on the Telugu film industry horizon. You just have to check out the crowds for Bangaru Kamini. Thanks to the 'stupendous' success of Chintamani the previous weeks, Shakila's drawing bigger crowds than Soundarya and Simran ever have.
Only, the euphoria is misplaced, as happens quite often in Indian sleaze. Expectations run riot among fans when a movie featuring a popular semi-porn star, especially one who happens to have had a very good release just before that, is being released, and the film turns out to be a disappointment in as far as the reason for going of these fans is concerned. Bangaru Kamini is an old one dubbed from Kannada, and is just an opportunistic release aimed at cashing in on Chintamani's success.
Babu is a taxi driver, who is trying to reclaim his ancestral property that is currently mortgaged. He is also in love with his niece Rajni, to whom he is soon to be betrothed. A common friend of the family gets Babu a job as a driver in Bangaru Kamini's (Shakila) house. Bangaru Kamini happens to be the wife of a very rich tea estate owner. Well, she only happens to be his wife because an evil guy, Nagaraju, planted her there to acquire all the rich man's assets. And since Kamini herself has a sad story, she plays along.
When Babu is appointed as the driver, all her desires (sexual and asexual) are aroused. Unfortunately Babu is a straight-forward and God-fearing guy, and hence her desires find fulfillment only in the form of fantasies. We are also given to understand that Babu is a very good masseur, but he doesn't get to give anyone a massage. So, just like those of Nagaraju, who doesn't get the property in the end and loses his life at the hands of Kamini, the hopes of the audiences also go up in smoke.
Vasanth Kumar as Babu is unconvincing. Shakila acts and titillates as if she has
had enough of such roles. This film was made clearly to cater to soft-porn lovers,
and is hardly to be looked at for any other aspect of filmmaking. Don't bother
with it for any reason.