The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : A time pass flick FilM Review

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Saturday, Aug 25, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

A time pass flick FilM Review

TWO MUCH: Srikant and Venu in ‘Yamagola... Malli Modhalaindhi’.

Film: Yamagola..Malli Modhalaindhi

Cast: Srikant, Venu, Meera Jasmine

Director: Srinivas Reddy

Some directors have the knack of making frictionless comedies for the front benchers and Srinivas Reddy is one of them. Don’t look too deep in this film that is predominantly about male bonding. Srikant and Venu attempt confident parodies of old collaborations, the former takes ghoulish delight in tormenting the mortals and his screen-buddy by his antics. Yamagola is about the grandsons of Yama and Chitragupta on a mission to Planet Earth and how the objective deviat es when they fall for an obese Meera Jasmine and a spirited Rima Sen.

Krishna Bhagwan’s motor-mouth comedy styling doesn’t yield much in the way of laughs. There’s also the matter of the movie’s pervasive, dumb, crass humour, which aims for easy laughs.

It’s not funny when you show Narada discovering his animal instinct when he falls on a domestic help, it’s not very creative when you rip a poet’s verse into a staccato song.

The celestial characters look less than convincing, more like artistes on a mobile drama tour and the costumes are garish.

The film drags endlessly post interval especially when Meera Jasmine is caught in the fire and the finale is tiresome. Srikant’s dance is lively and Venu’s contact lenses give him a weird look.

Message

But the biggest surprise of all is that this loud comedy has a positive message in the end. There are lessons about the consequences of goodness and selflessness and at times, it’s almost a love story, not about the crushes that the protagonists hanker after, but the more lasting love they feel for each other as best friends. On the whole it is nice to have comedies that find humour in everyday life but not the ones that have to strain to make us laugh. If you are looking for fun and some thing light to kill time, that too with plenty of dumb jokes, this one fits the bill.

Y. SUNITA CHOWDHARY

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