Film: Lee
Cast:Sumanth Shailendra, Nabha Natesh
Direction: Srinandan
Rating: 2/5
Just as we began to think that Sandalwood has finally embraced the trend of thoughtfully made movies, comes Lee. The film brings discouragement and hope flickers because it just shows that some people just cannot join a creative cult which has the capability to move ahead, together.
With Lee, Director H M Srinandan seems to have made the grandest of mistakes because he did not realise that the only thing necessary for the triumph of failure is to force yourself into something about which you have no clue. Srinandan will need time to recover and relearn all that he thought he had mastered
Just ten minutes into the film, the audience gets the feel that they have wasted their time and money. A love story between Leela, a Hindu girl and Charlie, a Christian boy, the film never takes off.
Since they belong to different castes, they elope, but fate takes a different turn when Charlie suffers a head injury, losing his memory and Leela is kidnapped by a group of gangsters on Dubai Sheikh’s (Rahul Dev) order. Just at the interval, Charlie is again hit and regains his memory. The second half sees how the hero goes in search of Leela and fights the goons. Will he get back to his love brings us torturously to the end of the film.
Sumanth Shailendra’s disastrous film, which gave him characters of a beggar, a martial arts teacher, a lover boy and an action hero, will give him a important lesson of being cautious while choosing films in future, but he will have to wait till the wounds of the debacle heals.
As of now, it is better that Nabha be known as the Pataka girl of Vajrakaya as her character Leela in Lee doesn’t lead anywhere. As for second heroine, Sneha Namdhani, she is in the film for the sole purpose of glam. The film does not take shape even with comedian Chikkanna’s presence. The editor seems to have joined Sumanth’s thinking and considered every scene important.
He too should go back and relearn the basics.
If the portrayal of the lead actors adds to the agony of the direction and the editing, the last nail in the coffin is the way senior actors have been projected. They include actors like Sadhu Kokila, Rangayana Raghu, Achyuth Kumar, Suchendra Prasad, among others who might be more than glad to have the film struck off their filmography.
The positive about the film is a few locations captured by cinematographer Nandakumar. Nothing worthy to mention about Anand Rajavikraman’s music nor Gurukiran’s background score.
One who accidentally watches Lee might just get over the trauma by watching films of Bruce Lee.