Chandravamsam Review

Chandravamsam is one of those handcrafted flicks that are lower than a snake's belly. And to add insult to injury, you are left wondering which of the two is the lesser evil - the movie frat for churning up such a vile flick, or you sitting in the theater with autowallahs on their lunch break for company. There seems to be no justification in anyone trying to watch this movie that's dumber than a pocketful of hair.

The whole cast comprises of a Mahabharat style family, replete with the panch pandavas (minus the caves and one Draupadi and several hundred meters of chiffon sari), who, on their Sundays off, go pedal-boating in Indira Park and pose next to the badminton nets singing loudly 'sensational family, sentimental something, happy happy - jawly, jawly'.

This, of course, lets you have an insight into the adhesive quality of this splitting-at-the-seams-but-tightly-knit family. Apart from the yarn is, of course, the shaadi of younger bro, which sets the ball rolling noisily for this flick.

Bro Krishna (Rohit), during the course of his elder brother's nuptial nonsense, falls like a cuckoo for the crow for the young and constipated looking Rukmini (Priya). This is also when the makers of the flick begin to look enquiringly, hoping fervently that you haven't missed the significance of the two names. Oh, whatever. Now that we've digested the first hiccup, we continue with the tale.

Young beauty doesn't exactly hail from any of the ashrams this side of the Sabarmati, and has not one but a bagful of bilious brothers, who, akin to unvaccinated dogs in summer, fume and froth at the drop of a paw. Not the sorts to pose next to sunshine postcards, they make hell for all and sundry.

Much blah, blah and blah, one wig, two songs and some sleep later, we discover that the family, headed by head honcho Krishna (the real one), sneaks into the girl's house dressed as a cook, a gatekeeper and the young betrothed as a dance master. I hope all those endless Sunday morning Mahabharat sessions played havoc on your memory and jolt you to the scene we're talking about.

The movie chugs along and, like a small kid proud of his ability to spell 'buffalo', throws up scene after scene, which neither entertain nor put you off in a coma. Superstar (hee hee) Krishna's acting and dancing seem to suggest symptoms of spondalitis and stiff joints and make him look like a barnyard fowl, whereas Jayaprada's overly matronly looks reek of a mid-life crisis.

Anyway, if you can actually survive the feeling of suspended animation with a bunch of friendly autowallahs and Ambassador car drivers, then go ahead 'jawly jawly' all the way!