Dhimma Tirige la, indeed!

Even as cinema is laughing its way to the bank with ‘B’ (Baahubali) and ‘BB’ (Bajrangi Bhaijaan) we have Mahesh Babu keep his Friday tryst. The crowds are returning to the theatres in hordes. At 4am before the milk vendor and the newspaper boy are out on their errands, the glitter unfurls on the screen.

The opening scene has the Rama Navami celebrations underway and as the superstar hones his dancing skills and does Rama Rama Rama Rama, the crowd goes berserk. When you are reiterating the old conflict – between the rich and poor, good and bad, rural and urban, the filmmaker says: search for something to ensure that your statement is heard – at least made! The director (Koratala Siva) decides to up the style quotient and does it with panache.

The film starts with the Prince refusing to be King! Harsha (Mahesh Babu) refuses to inherit rich dad Ravikanth's (Jagapathi Babu) Business Empire. He obviously is listening to a different drummer. The large family of brothers (Subbaraju in a role as important as the furniture), wife (Sukanya) and nephew Karthik (Rahul Ravindran) walk in and out of the script as Harsha’s character is slowly established.

He is the guy who is in search of the elusive solution and for the mirage of happiness. He meets and falls in love with Charuseela (Shruti Haasan). The boy meets girl love story takes its usual course through wooing and songs, dances and romance. In the meanwhile, we have a parallel track where in the village of Devarakota we have the local goon Shashi (Sampath Raj) and the village idealist Narayana (Rajendra Prasad).

The humility in the village gets so unacceptable that there is a near exodus out of the village to the city. Dad Ravikanth is a tad disappointed that the son is not falling in line with his financial scheme of things. Harsha gets involved when the son (Harish Uthaman) of a Union Minister Venkataratnam (Mukesh Rishi) walks into his father’s office and talks brawl. Harsha promptly returns the compliment.

After the pleasant laying out of the characters the simmering conflicts are placed in perspective. We have Charu refusing to wed Harsha when she comes to know that he is the heir to the wealth of Ravikanth and a tale to match. When Harsha’s family past is rolled out to him he decides to make amends to a sad past and return to the village of Devarakota where death mines are in mangroves.

So there is new conflict between Shashi and Harsha. The rich poor, rural – urban (read urbane) conflict is between Charu and Harsha, the good vs bad is between Harsha and Shashi. All the characters walk into the loose pieces of the script to complete the larger picture. The romantic part of the tale is very elegantly etched and is surely worth watching.

It sure gives some a sense of hope and some a sense of nostalgia! It is far more urbane than the usual formulistic pattern– take for instance the way Harsha gets Charu’s feet back when it touches him accidentally. All this is well within the drawn commercial fence. Not many chances taken. Only told with a lot of style.

Even the fights till the climax are more stunts (Anil Arasu) where style gets the better of gory blood. There is a spell in the film when we have Harsha transforming the village that looks borrowed from a Manoj Kumar film and the finale where you could believe it to be straight from the archives of any of the faction love stories. These minor irritants notwithstanding, the film maintains a fine tempo.

Every 15 minutes the audience gets delirious when Mahesh Babu breaks into a dance or makes pulp of the baddies. Either way he is the darling in fine form and mettle. He ensures that the fans who are waiting eagerly in long queues are not disappointed. There are no half-ways. He goes ballistic and gets his fans into a highly energised mode. Like a sidekick in the film describes him, he can be summed up: Item anna vaadu.

You know that in a film that is so hero-oriented, the rest have minor jobs. Shruti is her usual effervescent self – do not miss her wonderful costumes from Kalamkari lehengas to Mangalgiri kurtis. Rajendra Prasad hams and rest do their job with dignity. Watch the film. The pace and narration is fizz-filled, the entertainment is absorbing and as the song would suggest: Dhimma Tirige la.

Movie Name : Srimanthudu

Cast : Mahesh Babu, Rajendra Prasad, Jagapathi Babu and Shruti Haasan

Direction : Koratala Siva

Genre : Drama-action

Likes : Style and Mahesh Babu

Dislikes : Inevitable succumbing to formulistic treatmentRating

Rating : 3 1/2

By L Ravichander