Skanda Review

Boyapati Srinu must get a good night's sleep, for nothing's changed in his corner of the world. To him, a movie is still a paint-by-numbers affair - a tall tale scaffolded by six songs, seven fights, and a bazillion "entry scenes". The only difference being that the blood is now mostly CGI-made, which just means there is no more limit to how much of it gets spilled.

Skanda is, simply put, a quintessential Boyapati Srinu movie. You either enjoy its interminable fight sequences, buy its forced sentimentality and endure its flimsy female characters - or you don't. If you don't, well then, what were you doing watching a Boyapati movie in the first place? Because when Srinu cranks up his well-oiled money-making machine for mid-career heroes who come to him seeking a "mass elevations makeover", he delivers. He picks them out of their slump, puts a knife or gun in their hands - or, in Ram Pothineni's case, all manner of spears and swords - and drops them into the battlefield.

Skanda, which refers to Lord Karthikeya, the Hindu god of war, is, as its title betrays, a veritable killing carnival. One-time partners, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Rayudu (Ajay Purkar) and Telangana Reddy (Sharath Lohithaswa) become rivals over a family issue. However, every time Rayadu's men attempt to assassinate Reddy, a man steps in and thwarts their attacks. This man has no name - mockingly, he calls himself the Chief Minister's son-in-law, much to the annoyance of the Chief Minister Reddy's daughter Sreeleela (Sreeleela), who he flirts with at the college where they both study political science. When he is not a political science student, he appears to don a different avatar - a brute with tiger tattoos and rippling biceps and a thick Chittoor accent. Of these two avatars, which is the true version and which is a disguise is a source of confusion that is dispelled only at the very end of the film. By interval, though, we at least learn his name: Rudrakanti Bhaskar (Ram).

Skanda's hairy plot settles down into a long-winded story of revenge and redemption in the second half, amping up its sentimentality to a hundred. Its "punchy" dialogues about the corrupt politics in the country - like the one in which voters are compared to bovines that are fed (on welfare programs) so they can be milked (for votes) - give way to monologues about children caring for their elders. The fight sequences never take a back seat, though. There is always another dust bomb to throw, another Jeep to flip, another head to slice. Just as a fight looks to have ended, another idiot villain springs up from the earth and gets hurled in the air, liquid oozing out of his mouth.

Ram Pothineni performs with all the eagerness of an actor trying to wrest his way into the superstar league. He is ripped and dipped (in tattoo ink). He bares his shins and the undersides of his feet (?). And each of his innumerable fight scenes, all of which make use of the same slow-mo-fast-mo intercut template, lasts a lifetime. It is as if Boyapati wanted to eliminate every other image of Ram from your mind and leave you with just the one image of him as a slayer.

Skanda's two female leads are clearly only there for the aesthetics. Saiee Manjrekar gets a blink-and-you-miss-it role. Sreeleela is grating as the screechy spoiled-brat daughter of Chief Minister Reddy. Her intro scene features the worst green-screen graphics you've seen all year. While Ram on the other hand gets a smashing good entry featuring a big, brawny, well-hung male buffalo - the real standout "performer" of the movie, in my humble opinion. This oiled-up, gorgeous black beauty bucks and charges at a throng of people during a festival - a picture of grace and vigour. Sreeleela's role isn't even as memorable as this beast, and certainly far less likeable.

Skanda is a checklist-driven mass action film through-and-through. It has more reaction-face scenes than a matinee soap opera. Thaman's lacklustre score further annoys us with throwaway songs, like the item number Cult Mama that has the rhythm of a running generator.

Skanda is a cut-and-dried masala entertainer that never tries to be anything else.