Narasimhudu Review

It is, of course, far simpler to analyze films as an outsider, with no pressure or involvement with the project to cloud and jade your thought. Still, B Gopal operates far beyond the periphery of that benefit of doubt. Just what makes him cook up such unbelievably anachronistic, illogical and clichéd stuff, and actually presume it'll work? No, isn't it always an option to put some thought into your script?

There are films that try something different and fail. Narasimhudu is just an indigestibly crass and decrepit film, and what disappoints you all the more is how much of resources it had at its disposal. They apparently cleaned up Rs. 20 crores on this. Think of how many mouths that would have fed.

Then, take the actor himself. Aadi. Simhadri. Samba. Naaga. Andhrawala. Narasimhudu. How many times does he think it is worth? The same superhero-who-can-bash-up-20-armed-goons-singlehanded drill? There isn't one other actor in recent times who's been so repetitive. Right down to the extent of referring to his grandfather in every single film, 3 years after debut.

At its heart, Narasimhudu is yet another puffed-up MCP film that reeks strongly of the 80s formula - a superhero whose election symbol is testesterone, women who are eager to be shown their place, and comedy that you'd find in the Saturday midnight programs of Maa TV. Narasimhudu (NTR) is a he-man who can beat up 20 armed well-built goons single-handedly (assuming there's no shortage), and the darling of his village. One day an 11-year-old girl in the village gets raped by the sons of two fast friends and powerful bad men JD (Puneer Issar) and Surya (Kalabhavan Mani). Narasimhudu then goes to Hyderabad to track them down and kill them.

Some of the footage in the film is so bottom-of-the-barrel, you're wondering how any normal human can think it up - for example, Subbu (Amisha Patel), Narasimhudu's girl, tells him that he should not utter one word until the villians are dead, and so he stays dumb for a whole half of the film. Then, he actually keeps growling like an animal since his name is Narasimhudu. And for a man who has to keep a very low-profile given his mission, he makes threatening noises against a man no less than the Commissioner of Police, for no rhyme or reason.

Then, there is that reciting of the "Paritranaya Sadhunam…" verse, which must have hurt the feelings of the Lord Himself. More - when the Commissioner (Ashish Vidyarthi) comes to Narasimhudu's tenement to capture him, he (the Commissioner) starts badly beating up the people there asking them to confess that they saw him commit the murder of JP, but when one of them starts to indeed confess, he prays her to keep quiet about it, that Narasimhudu is a hero. Yes, it'd be interesting to see the results of an IQ test taken by the writers of these scenes.

There's also no explanation for a scene where some goons terrorizing a neighbourhood run away upon just seeing Narasimhudu - he is just a guy living in a non-descript village, not Osama bin Laden. There are millions more like this.

It's hard to care for anything else in the film, but the songs are the same fare, with lyrics bordering on vulgarity. The dances are tolerable, but since when did you start going to a film to see some guy dancing? Sameera Reddy has nothing to do but go around with her sari missing all through the film. Wonder if she dresses like that in real life.

Kalabhavan Mani is the only commendable thing about this whole film - after having seen every guy playing villian trying his hand at acting eccentric, you still get tickled by him. The women have nothing to do except be in the songs. Some performances, like by the young girl, are really bad.

We'll probably fill pages if we go on like this. Just remember one thing: "Paritranaya Sadhunam…" The Lord is protecting good people from films like this, in the form of reviews all over the media.