Film: Brahmotsavam Cast: Mahesh Babu, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kajal Aggarwal, Pranitha Subhash, Sathyaraj, Revathi, Jayasudha and Rao Ramesh Director: Sreekanth Addala Rating: 1.5 stars |
For all expectations built up by Brahmotsavam’s pre-release publicity, the film falls flat. A stellar star cast led by Mahesh Babu has been employed to deliver a dud.
With a wafer-thin plot and a shockingly poor screenplay, Brahmotsavam feels like a mash-up of random scenes put together. There is no link between one scene and the next and just when the viewer begins to get the hang of what’s going on, there’s a cut to a song. The first 45 minutes are thus spent trying to navigate around such plot jerks and when end credits roll, one is grateful.
Brahmotsavam revolves around the family of a wealthy businessman (Sathyaraj(, who, despite amassing Rs 400 crore, thinks only of being with his family and keeping them all together. The darling of this unbelievably capacious family is his son (Mahesh Babu) who speaks with innocence and without fear. Rao Ramesh (who plays Mahesh's uncle) feels inferior to Sathyaraj and harbours jealousy. He plots to get his daughter (Pranitha Subhash) betrothed to Mahesh Babu but along comes Kasi (Kajal Aggarwal). The scheming uncle espies innocent Mahesh in liplock with Kajal and the uncle contrives to foul up the nice family atmosphere. How this affects this closely knit family, what implications Rao Ramesh's jealousy cause and whether Mahesh finds his true companion, all such earthshaking questions make up the rest of the film.
The visuals are great, as you might expect from a Tollywood big-budget film. With vibrant colours and stunning locales, everything in the movie is grand. Unfortunately, that's just about it. Throughout the first half, a bunch of characters keep breaking into celebrations for no apparent reason. Every now and then, one of the main characters throws in a heavy dialogue to lend gravitas to the film. It fails.
The screenplay looks so disconnected that you wonder if you're watching one film or a collage of happy moments put in one video. The lack of substance shows through the gloss and even the ‘emotionally touching’ scenes fail to strike a chord.
The music by Mickey J Meyer and Mani Sharma (background score) is good and the dialogues are decent. Editing by K Venkateshwar Rao is lacklustre and the film seems to go on forever. Above all, it is the writing that is the biggest let-down in Brahmotsavam. Apart from a non-existent plot, the few promising scenes are poorly written.
Mahesh Babu does little apart from mingling with his never-ending list of relatives. The romantic sequences look unconvincing though Samantha and Kajal look good.Sathyaraj ( Rao Ramesh) though is terrific as the jealous uncle. As also Revathi, who plays Mahesh's mother. Rao Ramesh (Sathyaraj), Jayasudha, Tanikella Bharani, and Pranitha Subhash are all first-rate, while Vennela Kishore is used to provide some ‘family relief’.
Brahmotsavam leaves you with a lot of questions and no answers.