Hanuman Junction Review

Ever have the feeling of a pigeon flapping its wings violently in your face? It's a feeling of something happening, it's just that you can't figure what. Hanuman Junction is one of those fluttering pigeon fiascos where for a great part of the movie you don't exactly know what the fuss is all about. You just have to go by your gut feel and decipher the entire cryptic script.

The film revolves around the Sholay type friendship between Krishna (a podgy Arjun) and Das (Jagapati Babu). There also is one sister involved, and the trio is pretty happy in their hamlet of Hanuman Junction, which is the fiefdom of the two quasi-goons.

Arjun is being pursued by his childhood, peppermint sucking love Meenakshi (Sneha), but he doesn't give quarter of a hoot about that. Now enter a clerk in the form of Venu, who has a colossal crush on the sister. In order for him to get married to her, however, he has to first get the two brothers married to respectable females, so that they stop wreaking havoc every second of the day and get civilized. And so, joining their company K D & Co as manager, he dons the garb of Cupid and starts scheming to get the brothers hooked up.

The confusion is complete with the arrival of another female on the screen, this time a singer called Sangeeta (Laya). She has been kicked out of her house since she doesn't turn up for 4 days at a stretch, thanks to being detained by K & D for defying their whip about performing for them. She ends up rooming up with the brothers after being granted asylum by their sister who's irate at her bros' goonishness.

Buckets of haldi water, a couple of trucks, plenty of cross-connections, some hardcore emotions and one hundred different chaotic scenes later, the mess is untangled. But not before the mandatory sniffing about, a couple of bloody noses and loads of ketchup. The songs, with music by Suresh Peters, have been thrown in for good measure. You could be knocked down by a feather after noting how they aren't as ghastly as you expect Telugu film songs to be. They're pretty decent with some rather progressive choreography. Not modern ballet, but close (in a Hamlet-ish sort of way).

The flick is suspiciously decent, and the whole script is liberally peppered with one-liners that elicit a couple of loud guffaws. The highlight of the film is an artificial cow scene in the latter half, which is absolutely hilarious for about 20 minutes, and adds a star to the rating all by itself. It appears too good for a Telugu film, and maybe that's even true - but if it was indeed our own scriptwriters' originality, then where does it hibernate all the time?

There are about a hundred different comedians on screen, so there is no dearth of talent. Arjun and Jagapati Babu make a nice ruffian looking pair as they pound out one knuckle sandwich after another. The heroines are all pretty, and go along the winding script with a playful nonchalance.

Well, you don't get struck in the face with a spoon when you see the flick in terms of its originality - it's the routine stuff. But looks like, for once, they seemed to do a good job for a quarter of the movie (that comic part) before botching it up. It's the unbotched stuff, though, that deserves a dekko.