Male bonding, Mallu style!

Undying tales of friendship and how it is the only bond that is priceless and all weather-resistant have been a staple diet for many directors of Indian cinema. Without tinkering with the overall macro format, director Siddique came up with his Malayalam film 'Friends' in 1999, classified as a 'buddy-comedy- drama' film, which went on to make huge amount of money at the box-office, by collecting Rs 11 crore as against a budget of Rs 2 crore and turning out to be the highest grosser in Mollywood that year. In a rare development, the film saw music being scored by Ilaiyaraja, who had not worked in many films in Malayalam, otherwise.

Two years later, the Tamil and Telugu versions followed. Since it had a good star cast in Malayalam with medium-level stars like Jayaram, Mukesh and Sreenivasan, it saw an equally impressive collection of stars in Telugu where it was released as ' Snehamante Idera'.

The film featured the Akkineni clan heroes – Nagarjuna and Sumanth – apart from Sudhakar, who was known for his comic roles then. R B Choudhary of Super Good Films, whose banner was very busily churning out remakes in both Tamil and Telugu produced this remake too.

Blending a strong emotion like friendship with a relief-inducing one like that of comedy, Siddique had made his venture a memorable one in Malayalam. In the Telugu version, impressed by the comedy track in Tamil which had Vadivelu rocking the screen with his unique sense of timing and histrionics, it was 'nativised' for the Telugu audience.

With five releases in 2001 out of which none appealed wholesomely to the fans or lovers of his style of acting, Nagarjuna found this film going a certain distance to keep himself in the race in the new millennium. Sumanth, his nephew, who was yet to make a mark did not find this film adding depth to his career.

As far as director Balasekaran went, after a successful ' Priyamaina Neeku', this film was not that much successful to keep his momentum going in Telugu cinema. Despite a tenure of over a decade and more, he did not have many films to speak of, as his repertoire comprises only eight films in a timeframe between 1997-2013.

However, this film went on to prove that there existed a space then for multi-starrers in Telugu cinema, with one leading name anchoring the flick to have commensurate support from the other stars at various stages of fame and box-office appeal.

This ensured that the average viewer managed to see his favourite star play the pivotal role and also enjoy the showcasing of talent by the others, who had brief, yet attention-grabbing presence in the film. A phase which has morphed into many other formats over the years in Telugu filmdom, a development which is inevitable, given the twists and turns of commercial cinema in India.

Film: Snehamante Idera (2001)

Remade from: Friends (1999)

Starring: Nagarjuna, Sumanth, Sudhakar, Bhumika Chawla