Vain bid to direct a suspense thriller

With the success of films like 'Mantra, Anasuya and other such horror and thriller films, several other producers and directors tried to toe their line and made attempts to bring out films on the same theme and trend. Haricharana Prasad, who had earlier produced an award-winning film at national level like 'Kamli', had made an attempt this time to wield the megaphone as well to direct the film. They chose a novel scripted by noted English writer Richard Martin, which has horror/thriller in its backdrop as an inspiration in penning the story. However, the film is neither a horror nor a thriller but has a little suspense, which is easily predictable.

Anand (Shafi) is a doctor by profession He is kind at heart and wants to serve a remote village. So he sets out to the village with his wife Sunita (Mithuna) and daughter Apoorva (Likhitakshari). Once they go to the village goddess' temple and finds a woman gets hysteric there. When Anand says he doesn't believe it, the pujari applies kumkum and Anand starts revealing many incidents in his life to his wife and others. Even after going home, he starts gets some hallucination and finds a young girl asking some thing. Even, Apoorva also was able to look at the girl. As Anand start behaving hysterically at times, Sunita takes Anand to her brother, who was a neurologist. He performs tests and explains that Anand is alright.

Once Anand and Sunita go to watch a film leaving Apoorva at home with the help of Rani, a servantmaid, who works in the village head's (Sivakrishna) house. Suddenly Anand gets a feel that Rani is taking away Apoorva. Surprisingly, his thought prove right. Later, when Anand, Sunita and Apoorva go to the weekly shandy, a middle-aged woman looks at Apoorva and Anand and invite Anand to her place. Unable to bear the mental harassment and hallucinations, Anand goes to the woman, who again applies kumkum and tells him that a girl named Sita is seeking his help and tells him to retrieve her as she was buried in his house. So, Anand dugs up his backyard but could not find the body. Unable to understand the acts of Anand, Sunita goes to his brother's place as her grandmother passes away. Later, Anand recollects that she slept under the dining table, during one of his hallucination experiences.

So, he digs the place underneath the dining table and finds the skeletal remains of Sita and also the evidences that she was murdered by the son of that house owner (Rallapalli) and his friend and son of the village elder. In order to escape from arrest, the son of the village elder commits suicide, while, the house owner and his son attempts to kill Anand. However, the village shoots both of them to save Anand and advises him to leave the village as all the culprits were already punished. Anand returns to the city to lead a happy life with Sunita, Apoorva.

PERFORMANCE:

Shafi, who made his debut in 'Khadgam' in a small time villain's role, proved his acting talents with 'Chatrapati'. Later, he played small characters in different films. However, he earned name and fame after playing a role in the producer-cum-director's award winning film 'Kamli'. Again, the producer gave him an opportunity and promoted him as the lead artiste in this movie. Shafi showed different emotions perfectly and the debutant heroine Mithuna is just okay in the role. Though you just can't write off her performance, she gave an average performance and of course good looking. Madhavilata is okay in the devil's role and the solo song shot on her is good and portrayed in glamorous way. Sivakrishna, Rallapalli, Rupadevi, did justice to their roles and had no big role to play.

TECHNICAL:

The theme of the film is okay but the film has lost the flavour with the hints given before the interval bang. The audiences could easily grasp the girl was raped and murdered. The immaturity of the director is visible right from the beginning. Though the film was run in a routine manner, the movement of the film was not so gripping in the absence of tight screenplay. Especially, the digging scene was stretched too long and bored the audiences. Moreover, a doctor by profession, could have taken the help of others instead of himself sweating to dig the land. Camera work is okay, while editing should have been a little more sharp in the second half.

Music by Sri Vasanth, the grandson of popular music director Satyam, is okay. The film had only two songs and of them one is a solo song and one is duet. The songs were tuned in a traditional and normal way. Re-recording could be improved a lot.

ANALYSIS

In the absence of noted artistes, the successful running of the film is doubtful. But for Sivakrishna and Rallapalli, no other artiste is familiar to the audiences. Moreover, the suspense in the drama was missing and became easily predictable. The director failed to establish Madhavilata's character properly. The film appeared to have been made by the producer only to satisfy his ego that he too could direct a film, but has not much substance.

Cast: Shafi, Mithuna, Baby Likhitakshari, Madhavilata, Sivakrishna, Rallapalli, Rupa Devi, Gopal, Ravi, Gokhale and others

Credits: Camera – Muralimohan Reddy, Editing – Ravindrababu, Music – Sri Vasanth, Lyrics – Veturi, Dances – Swarna and Vidyasagar, Art – Ramesh Rebba, Producers – Haricharana Prasad and Sukanya, Screenplay and direction – Haricharana Prasad.

Banner: Apoorva Chitra

Music – Sri Vasanth says, 'I am the grandson of popular music director Satyam and I worked with several music directors except Illayaraja and AR Rehman.

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