Mallanna

Punchline: wrong screenplay Genre: Action Type: Bilingual (Kanthaswamy in Tamil) Banner: V Creations Cast: Vikram, Shriya Saran, Prabhu Ganesan, Krishna, Ashish Vidyarthi, Mukesh Tiwari, Vadivelu, Mumaith Khan & Susi Ganesan Music: Devi Sri Prasad Dialogeus – Lyrics: Sahithi Cinematography: NK Ekambaram Art: Thota Tharani Stunts: Kanal Kannan Story – screenplay – direction: Susi Ganesan Producer: Kalaipuli S Thanu Release date: 21 August 2009

Story

Mallana (Vikram) is a CBI officer who works in economic offenses wing. There is a tradition of writing the wishes of devotees on a paper and sticking it to the tree in Mallanna temple of Srisailam. And the wishes of those devotees come true as somebody leaves the required amount of money at the houses of devotees. It is slowly revealed that CBI officer Mallanna runs an underground organization consisting of a group of friends whose duty is to rob the billionaires who amassed loads of wealth through unfair means. They would be distributing the robbed money to the devotees of Mallanna temple. Meanwhile, DGI (Prabhu) is entrusted with the task of demystifying who the Mallanna is. The rest of the story is all about how Mallanna brings two billionaires (Asish Vidyardhi and Mukesh Tiwari) to the road and how DGI finds out the real truth.

Artists Performance

Vikram: Vikram is an epitome of perfection. He is just perfect in the role of CBI officer Mallanna. His mannerisms as rooster in superman getup are excellent. He is extremely feminine in lady get-up. He also dubbed his voice for the character and it’s good. However, his pronunciation and accent is not good in the songs he sung for the movie.

Shrya Saran: Shriya oozes oomph in a sexy role of Subbulakshmi. She exposed liberally. She is suave and highly fashionable. She did belly dance in Allegra song. You don’t see her walking normally in any frame of this movie. She would swing various parts of her body as she walks.

Others: Superstar Krishna donned the role of CBI chief and he is a delight to watch. Prabhu is flawless as cop in pursuit of Mallanna. Brahmanandam is wasted in tasteless comedy episodes (some of the theatres trimmed the scenes of Brahmanandam by cutting 15 minutes of his footage). Bollywood actor Mukesh Tiwari did the role of one of the villain who virtually lives in a caravan. Ashish Vidyarthi is adequate as main villain. Mumaith Khan played herself and danced to the remix song of ‘Pachagaddi koseti’. Director Susi Ganesan did an important role.

Technical departments

Story - screenplay - directon: The story of the movie is a potpourri of Shankar’s corruption/social inequity oriented movies like Aparichitudu, Gentleman and Sivaji. Director Susi Ganesan has got the right raw material for the movie in terms of story idea and casting. What he failed at is to give the right treatment to the story. For example, instead of going the director Shankar’s way, he tried to give James Bond type of characterization to the hero and heroine. Shriya is just like a bond girl in the movie (willing to do anything to betray hero). Mallanna character’s noble intention is marred by bond style of characterization. Susi Ganesan has also failed miserably in screenplay department. By revealing who the Mallanna is and how he does heroic acts in the beginning of the movie, he killed the curiosity of audiences to look forward to for some excitement/thrill in the later part of the movie. After the interval, the movie becomes a personal war between two villains and hero. One idea that is authentic and original is devotees tying papers of wishes to the tree in temple. Another debating element in the movie is that devotees are shown as the people suffering from monitory problems. There are many devotees who visit temple for mental peace and for solutions regarding non-monitory related problems. The biggest negative point for the story is the reason behind hero becoming Mallanna. The flashback episode is not good enough to give the hero a strong motive.

Other departments: Music by Devi Sri Prasad is an asset. All songs in this movie are energetic. All the songs are shot well and they are like music videos. Cinematography is very good except for the Mexican episode. The DI and color grading is also handled well. Stunts are well-choreographed. Dialogues and lyrics by Sahithi are adequate. However, the editing cuts are too jerky and optical work does disturb one’s eyes. Editing should have been better. Art direction by Thota Tharani deservers an appreciation. Production values are grand and it shows up on the screen.

Analysis: First half of the movie establishes the premise and it’s adequate. Second half gets into personal rivalry and movie slips out of the grip as it progresses (from the moment hero accepts the proposition of the villain). Plus points of the movie are Vikram, music and grand production values. The negative points are screenplay, flashback episode (reason why hero wants to help reduce social inequity) and runtime (3 hours and 15 minutes). On a whole, Mallana is an example of what happens when popular screenplay goes wrong in any of Shankar’s movies.