Subhakaryam Review

There is a certain substance - usually greenish, almost always foul smelling - the production of which has been, until now, largely attributed to the male of the cattle species. Some consolation to learn that if there ever is a shortage of the substance, not to worry - our filmmakers have the capability of producing it in sufficiently large quantities. It's been a while since mainstream movies with such a star cast have been so disappointing.

So here you have a large house, different parts of which have been let out to different people, thereby creating a community atmosphere. Balu (Naveen) lives here with his roomie, L B Sriram. He is in love with his neighbour Devi - a widow with a young son. Right here you realize that there is to be a long flashback - but eventually you get not one, not two, but three flashbacks.

Madhu (a bombshell model) falls in love with Balu after seeing that he is such a decent chap. Madhu's bava Sudhakar (remember him? - the really villainous looking baddie who got into trouble about a year ago for...?) beats up people who go near her. Even though Balu refuses Madhu right from the start, he has constant run-ins with Sudhakar. Eventually, Balu is forced to confess his love for Devi in front of everybody. When he is chided, for obvious reasons, he reveals that Devi is not really a widow.

Post-interval is almost entirely taken up by Rajasekhar. He is (very originally!) an upright cop. Since Saikumar dubs for Rajasekhar anyway, the director probably didn't want to waste time and effort, and directly lifted dialogues from the Saikumar starrer 'Khaki Chokka'. But small surprise element - Rajasekhar's already married. So the only bit of suspense is how Devi becomes a widow. Ashish Vidyarthi plays a wicked politician and we all know how that storyline ends. Everybody dies leaving Devi with Rajasekhar's baby son... As far as the story goes, the rest is all extremely predictable.

Our directors should realize that there are limits to the amount of crap audiences will take. For instance, Rajasekhar's revolvers have more bullets than those in all the goondas' guns put together! He is stabbed with a sword, shot a gazillion times, and he can still run a 100-meter sprint to kill the villain - with one bullet, of course. There are so many more of these, but I'm already bored.

The music is generally pleasant and the choreography is good; but that can never make up for pathetic storyline. Like we said, one for the cattle lovers.