Bindaas Review

Everybody likes to be far ahead of the others. In the case of Ajay (Manoj), however, he has to be - the others behind him are usually chasing him with swords, hatchets and sickles. And many times, they're likely to be his own family and college-mates - almost everyone who knows him wants to kill him, irrespective of their age, sex and views on non-violence. Indeed, he's so good at making people hate him, he'd be recruited into any JAC instantly.

So when his extended family in Rayalaseema one day asks him to come home from his hostel in the city, it is under severe compulsion - the entire family is being threatened by a rival clan due to age-old fueds, and they need everyone at the same place to be safe. Once back home, he starts doing what he does best - upsetting his elders, his contemporaries, the kids, the family dog and everyone else who thought they were lucky not to be in that list.

Among the various people of the family traumatized by Ajay is Girija (Sheena), his cousin, who wants to murder him for his taunts after first slowly pulling his nails, hair and other body parts out, but doesn't know the precise section of the Indian law which encourages this. Ajay and she keep going on and on trying to run each other down, and she soon falls in love with him - she decides that he may be a royal pain, but at least he is a royal pain before marriage itself, rather than turning into one after marriage. Hey, we never said the girl was a genius.

Trying to kill members of his family is that of Mahendra Varma (Jayaprakash Reddy), a local warlord whose fundamental problem with most people is that they are alive. His close relative (Jeeva) is killed by Ajay's family, and the former's wife (Telangana Sakuntala) swears that unless someone in killed in retaliation, she will not perform the last rites of her husband, eat food or shut up. The last threat is too much to bear for Varma, and he sets his entire family and machinery on the task.

They get Ajay and his 2 cousins alone shortly, but get beaten to pulp by Ajay, which results in one of them going into a coma and another thinking he is in one. Ajay's family however thinks that he is responsible for the whole problem, and throws him out of the house. And he moves to the most dangerous place possible.

Bindaas hits you below the belt in being surprisingly good - given that it's released with suspiciously few shows in the multiplexes, you tend to assume the worst when you enter the theatre. The film is almost in the league of Ready in the comedy and in the intelligence in the second half. For Manchu Manoj Babu, whose star is on the ascendant with a not-bad Nenu Meeku Telusa and an above-average Prayanam, this is likely to be his first bonafide hit.

The first half engages you with the sheer comedy of the rat-a-tat dialogues, having you giggling uncontrollably curled up in your knees and looking shyly at the screen from behind them. The plot of the second half is cerebral in the Srinu Vaitla-esque genre, with the clever intertwining of various sub-plots not letting the comedy let up.

Manoj is turning out into a fine actor at least in this genre - insofar as animated roles are concerned, he perhaps has a good future. Sheena has an abbreviated role - she's almost absent in the second half - and does okay for a first-timer. The rest of the crew comprises seasoned Tollywood veterans (and many would now include the kid Bharat Kumar of Ready fame in that), including many from the comedy roll-call - Brahmanandam, Raghubabu, M S Narayana, Sunil etc.

The soundtrack (Bobo Sasi) has some songs that are popular already, though sometimes the songs irreverently interrupt the narrative, especially in the second half. The film is visually on par with Tollywood standards.

Catch this one with your entire family - before the Shiv Sena calls you a traitor for having an entire family.