Dussasana Review

Dussasana is an angry film. And like most of Posani's creations, it is more anger than art. There are pertinent issues dealt with, and some powerful questions raised, but as the film unfolds, you discover the bad news yourself: the only thing that Posani Krishna Murali, the writer and director of this film, wants to capitalize on is your revulsion. Which is a tragic thing to happen to a flick that could otherwise have been a social beacon of sorts.

Dussasana talks about the angst of a man who calls himself the Common Man. Showing ample signs that he's been wronged in the past, this firebrand dresses in black and keeps going to people to shoot to them uncomfortable suggestions on ways to improve what he considers a decadent society.

For example, he walks up to total strangers and tells them they are obliged to donate one of their eyes to one blind person each so that all the blind in society can see - he explains that the donor can anyway make do with one eye. Random storm-ins like this puzzle the crowd and the police alike, but the Common Man's real agenda is to kidnap the CM's daughter.

He then goes ahead to attack a powerful politician (Kota Srinivasa Rao), and in his crusade, he touches upon general civic issues, as well as a few that made the headlines recently - including localities being supplied with contaminated water to drink.

His methods are occasionally cruel, but if you get down to thinking about it, his logic is exactly the stuff the conversations of the aam aadmi are indeed made of. For example, forcing an MLA and his family to drink and bathe in the same sewage water that was supplied to his voters - you sure have wished for it some time in life. Despite his scathing, and sometimes brutal, modus operandi, you find yourself cheering for the Common Man and wanting to see where this goes.

Which is nowhere.

The Common Man, as it is revealed, has a score to settle with the netas he is fighting against. He's had a rough past, and the film uses the flashback to completely undo whatever else it has going for it. The second half is, at best, a mess, with Posani overdoing it. The atrocities meted out by vote-hungry politicians are exaggerated, sure, but the ceaseless and ridiculously graphic violence in the end takes the cake. Both unrealistic and distasteful, this half gets worse as it proceeds.

Srikanth delivers his lines the way Posani would, which is unnerving for a while. However, the man has an appeal of his own: watch it in the flashback scenes where he has to be all intense. Clearly, he deserves to be in more - and better - movies. The seniors - Kota, Tanikella Bharani, Brahmanandam and Chalapathi Rao - all have some interesting scenes and dialogues written for them.

An item song and a couple of loud revolution-type songs make up the soundtrack. The visuals aren't appealing, and the production values are merely functional.

Posani may have a lot of rich material on his hands, but his movies continue to be a matter of taste. And we're sure there are ways for him to make them appeal to more people than they currently do - it wouldn't hurt to.