Takkari Donga Review

It's time to put your blinders on and try to see this bucket of chocolate mousse called Mahesh Babu as he... er... makes a stunning debut as a tough cowboy in a role bound to put Clint Eastwood and John Wayne to eternal shame. You might have to stretch your already inelastic imagination a wee bit to see Mahesh Babu fill their shoes, but what the heck... we've seen worse!

The flick is an out-and-out Western, with saloons, pretty babes, rednecks and gunfights crawling out of the woodwork. Everyone mistook this movie's story to be that of Mackenna's Gold, but it isn't. And thank God for small mercies!

What the flick is, of course, is an attempt to showcase chocolate boy as a Tough Macho Hero, and unfortunately for everybody, Mahesh Babu looks like a lovelorn kid dressed in cowboy pants to cheer himself up.

The story? Oh, well - Babu is an El Bandito who has a reward on his head which is still smaller than his ego. So in order to massage the latter and increase the size of the former, he commits a couple of daring crimes which cause his market value to zoom a couple of notches and also serve as a vehicle to showcase his talent for jumping in and out of trains, horses and various other forms of transportation.

During his escapades he meets a Chica Bonita pretty girl Bipasha, who is a crook herself. The squint-eyed Bipasha and Mahesh Babu then hog about thirteen reels of film in a whole grab-bag full of comic capers and unnecessary songs.

Then after a while Lisa Ray makes her entry, and we soon learn there are a secret map, a diamond valley and some crooks, too, in the flick. As also some revenge, a little bit of flashback and other inane stuff.

The film is pretty okay and holds your attention for about 5 minutes, after which the whole Western thing gets a bit tedious and all you are wishing for is to see some songs and college scenes set in Switzerland - the deviation from the normal diet can't be withstood by us weaklings. But for the strong-hearted, this is a fairly decent movie with some slick production values. Looks like the script writer spent an ample amount of time watching and taking notes from every cowboy flick to be churned out of Hollywood. This is no spaghetti Western - it is a full sambar Western. Great effort, though - now if only we could work on the hero's southern drawl. Howwwwwdy pardnnnerrrrr!

Mahesh Babu is kinda okay, but you have to make a great effort from bursting into giggles each time you see him act tough. Yeah right, bring it on buddy! The town he is supposed to be from, in this flick, is called Pulusupoodi - oh sorry, pasalapaadu. As for the babes, they can't act for all the love of the Lord, and remain what they are - babes.

Director Jayant appears to have put in a commendable effort to throw up this flick, and seems to have roped in some great camerawork and screenplay while he was at it. This film may not be Dirty Dozen or A Fistful Of Dollars, but it does make for a nice change to watch all the actors get their spurs on and act tough. So what if you can't stop smirking?