Blade Babji Review

The occasional blackhole in the world of logic either amuses or exasperates, and many times, both. But we need those blackholes so we can use our time for something productive - namely, have some fun.

And Blade Babji offers exactly that, with its promise of nonsense and a general nose-thumbing at all things connected to reason. If you are in the mood to laugh unconditionally, if your amusement-trigger levels are set low enough, and if you are willing to watch two-and-a-half hours of messy chaos and not intellectualize it, this one is an effortless watch.

'Blade' Babji belongs to a smooth-talking four-some of crooks in Rajahmundry, who earn their living and daily kicks from swindling unsuspecting people. When their local community's dwelling is threatened by the demands of their rough-talking landlord, Babji and gang pull off a much larger heist.

A bank in Vizag is robbed of Rs. 4 crores (and as easily as conning a 3-year-old of a lollipop, we might add), the money is buried under an under-construction building, and in an outrageously wild twist, the gang disappears from the scene and returns after a month, only to find a police control room where they had once buried the moolah.

In a fairly extended Pokiri-rip-off, Babji cons his way into the dim-witted police force, trying to retrieve the booty. An uncannily solved burglary gets him a promotion, and the promise of his boss' daughter (Sayali Bhagat) in marriage.

Con-game after con-game, the gang chases the treasure around, from one impossible plot-section to another, and sooner than you know it, everyone's after the four crores - a greedy policeman, a man who accidentally laid his hands on the loot and lost it, an erstwhile victim of Babji's gang, and the police themselves, after it finally, finally dawns on them that Babji's a crook.

The jokes are mostly elementary, but don't let that fool you into thinking this is a kids' film - there are quite a few lines that lean into seedy territory, apparently the stuff that has masses on the floor, and even a line that refers to a part of the body, that miraculously got past the censors. The proceedings are a sequence of wild, lunatic plot twists, and two hours of unashamed clowning around, chiefly by Naresh, who is unquestionably the ring-master.

And Naresh, who literally towers above everything else in the film, is clearly having the most fun. Sayali Bhagat was probably intended to deck up the proceedings, but she doesn't look remotely the deck-up kind of material, her make-up and clothes doing her in. Sorry, but we don't think even the 'masses' dig wooden, macho-looking Miss Indias.

The rest of the cast is doing what it does in every film, namely, accessorize the lead actor. And there are a million accessories here, enough to keep the joke-tap running - in case one joke doesn't work out for you, the next one could. In any case, everyone's laughing at one point of time or the other.

The visuals, however, are not co-operating. Many shots look dustily dim, as though they've been picked out of decade-old archives. The songs are for the restroom breaks or for the pop-corn refills - if you aren't sitting in the front benches, that is.

Blade Babji is simple-minded laugh-material - not the rip-roaring or the all-time-favourite kind, but for those who want to watch some unaffected masala, and of course, for all those who love Allari Naresh.