Baanam

Story

Set in the year 1989, Bhagat (Rohit) is a man of strong conscience and determination. His goal is to get into the police force and wipe away the evil. His father Shekar (Sayaji) is an ex-naxalite who comes back from his former life. All goes well until Bhagat comes across a conventional and traditional Brahmin girl Lakshmi (Vedhika). She has a sad story and Bhagat gets her home. In no time, trouble begins and what starts as a small thing ends up becoming an issue with the dreaded don Shakti (Randhir). What is that incident? Is Bhagat successful in achieving his goal? All this forms the rest of the story.

Performances

Nara Rohit is handsome and has good voice. His dialogue delivery is good and he has to work a bit on his body language. His character has been quite serious so not much can be said about his other skills. Vedhika did justice to her role. Sayaji Shinde was alright, Randhir was effective, AVS was normal, Rajeev Kanakala did justice, Bhanuchander was regular, the others did their bit as required.

Technical aspects

The script has been written well and the dialogues were the highlight. The screenplay was neat, the narrative of the film went smooth. Real credit goes to the gripping background score and also to the songs that added melody. Cinematography was standard but could have been better, editing was crisp, costumes were effective and the art department was natural.

Director’s portrayal

The director has come up with a story that has a message and his focus was mainly on the content than the actors. He has handled the script effectively and has tried to symbolize few ideologies through the scenes without conveying them directly. He could have worked on extracting better performances from the cast and focused on getting more from the visuals department. Being a debutante, he has done a good job overall.

Critic’s view

The film is quite serious and true to the title, focus has been on the iron will and single mindedness of the protagonist. While the first half goes about with the building up of the story, the real velocity is known in the second half and it has got a different approach to the climax unlike the regular movies. The technical aspects of the film have been good but then the makers should have brought in some familiar faces and more experienced artistes to give the right kind of impact. But still, this has got enough message for the audience and if only there was an element of comedy, that would have really worked.

Verdict

Serious and hard hitting, can be watched once

Released on : 16/09/2009