Naa Girl Friend Baga Rich Review

If you're the kind who likes thriller-comedies, who gets tickled watching Brahmanandam do an understated performance, who likes to watch Bangkok in the movies, who loves a hot-bodied heroine, where do you go? Well, frankly, no one knows. What we do know is that this film isn't the place.

However, Naa Girl Friend Baga Rich does have its funny moments - when the guys at the ticket counter or at the parking lot roll the name around their tongues in that Hyderabadi accent. After that, it's all downhill.

Sanjay Shastri (Sivaji) is the country's no. 1 golfer. This means nothing to his friends, who think he's only after rich girls. This means nothing to him, because he loves his girlfriend, Shravya (Kaveri Jha), not just because she's rich. This means nothing to the director, who thinks India's no. 1 golfer can be as dim-witted as this. Coming to the point, it means nothing.

Now, Sanjay flies to Bangkok to holiday with Shravya and her parents (Ahuti Prasad, Tulasi). On the flight, he meets the churlish underworld agent Mike Tyson (Brahmnanandam), whose bag gets accidentally exchanged with his own.

When he reaches the hotel at Bangkok, all is seemingly fine until the bag is opened. He discovers something that no one alive can ever imagine finding in a bag exchanged with Brahmanandam â€" no, it's not Brahmanandam's top 10 reasons for doing this movie, but half a dozen severed heads.

In the rest of the story, Sanjay is panicking and trying to play pass-the-parcel with the bag of heads. People in the audience are revolted at the shocking premise â€" what a waste of a fantastic bag! However, it doesn't really matter because the majority wins - there are more people inside the bag than in the audience, and the ones inside the bag aren't revolted.

The director, in his attempt at comedy, introduces many inventive things to the Telugu screen, that we would never have thought would make us chuckle, leave alone split our sides laughing. Which is just as well, because they don't. For instance, one of the heads accidentally lands into the hotel laundromat, and starts spinning around with the clothes.

Also, there's a sub-plot in which Tyson makes Sanjay's friends eat his (Tyson's) socks just so they may reveal Sanjay's whereabouts. Later, there's even a scene in a mortuary. In the anti-climax, Brahmanandam hurls Shravya's grandmother (Rama Prabha) out of a moving vehicle, to her death. Now, that was really not funny â€" why didn't he toss out the others?

The film is slow-paced, it has cruel, morbid situations passing off as humour, and the action anyway never starts until the second half. In any case, characters keep taking aeons to figure out the next course of action, which makes the whole film about as tolerable as watching an ugly snail decide directions.

The performances are, we must admit, good â€" Sivaji is quite a natural, and the actors playing his friends do well, too. Brahmanandam could do these things in his sleep â€" as you notice he does. Tulasi needs to tone down, and she needs a comb, quick! She hams so much, it makes you feel self-conscious.

The background music tries to push things faster, and the songs are decent. The visuals aren't entirely lousy.

In case you do plan to watch this flick, please carry your own garbage bag and keep the theatre clean â€" no one wants to see your head rolling around.