Oke Mata Review

Actor-Director Upendra, who with his unconventional films like 'A' and 'Upendra' has carved a niche for himself in Tollywood, has let down his fans with his latest film which neither entertains nor delivers any message. For a change he has let himself be directed by Muthyala Subbaiah, who is known for his family dramas. The film suffers from a weak story line, which begins well, but loses its way after the interval.

JP, an industrialist, and his son Sriram, with the help of Sirisha (Ramya Krishna), an advocate, set up a chemical factory near a fishing hamlet. Sooryam (Upendra), the leader of the fishing community, protests against the discharge of toxins into sea by the factory, which is killing the fish. The protest turns violent and Sooryam is jailed. When brought to court he accuses Sirisha, who defends JP, of using the case to settle scores with him on some personal issues.

He goes on to make a couple of revelations that he is a lawyer and that Sirisha is his wife. We are taken to a flashback, where we are shown that Soorya Prakash and Sirisha were students of the same Law College, where they fall in love and get married. Soorya's elder brother, Gangaraju (Nagendra Babu), contests in a local election to the post of President of the Fishermen Association. When he finds the election being rigged by Satyababu, a fight erupts, which leads to the death of two police constables. Gangaraju and his men get scared and go into hiding.

The inspector asks Sooryam to convince Gangaraju to surrender so that his hand in the killings could be ruled out. Sooryam acts accordingly and the inspector, who was bribed by Satyababu, kills Gangaraju. Sooryam kills the inspector, but is proved innocent in the court by Sirisha, who manipulates the case and its lone witness, a constable. This constable later tells Sooryam that the actual man behind Gangaraju's murder was Sirisha's brother. Sooryam thrashes Sirisha's brother, who accidentally falls from the terrace and dies.

Sirisha is disgusted with Sooryam for killing her brother, and declares herself a widow and challenges to destroy Sooryam. Finally, the truth dawns upon her and she goes to save Sooryam, who gets beaten up by JP and his men. Seeing Sirisha, Sooryam regains the fresh vigor that every hero gets from his heroine and beats up the goons physically and the audience mentally.

Upendra has a perpetual expression of confusion on his face. In fact it is the audience who are confused about what exactly in going on. Though the music by Koti is catchy, the picturisation of songs is jarring. Raasi is reduced to an insignificant role. All she does is woo Sooryam, and that too, unsuccessfully. It is strange that she is unaware of Sooryam's marital status though they live in the same neighborhood. On the whole the movie is a damp squib and the audience heaves a sigh of relief when the curtain finally falls.