The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Interesting story gets wasted

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Saturday, Sep 20, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Interesting story gets wasted

STRIKE A POSE: A still from the film ‘Mallepuvvu’.

Film: Mallepuvvu

Cast: Bhumika, Muralikrishna

Direction: Samudra

Malliswari (Bhumika) lives in Bangladesh and comes to India to immerse her grandmother’s ashes in the Godavari. She stays in her father’s friend’s home and little does she know that they are terrorists and are fighting a Jihad. The family is shot and Malliswari finds herself in a hapless situation, the police mistaking her to be a terrorist.

The film opens at a construction site where the heroine in a disguise comes seeking work as a labourer. When her true identity is revealed she is on the run with the police and her silent lover Koti (Jyothi Krishna) trying to trace her.

While how she is proved innocent forms the rest of the story, the important part is the screenplay and how the director unfolds the plot, the events and the development.

An interesting story line and an actress like Bhumika goes wasted as the director fails to enthuse life into the characters around them. Despite Bhumika’s vulnerability as a victim and her fine acting skills, the lack of emotion and over dramatisation of characters and the slow first half does not enthuse viewers.

The director who plays the friend of the hero dominates the latter in every frame and dilutes the love track.

The film is a mix of various films and the photography is blurring. However, a couple of numbers are melodious. The comedy track fails to elicit laughs and the hero who is a debutant is passable.

Y. SUNITA CHOWDARY

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