Saleem

Coming from a front-line director, a successful production house and the combination of Vishnu-Illeana, with music by Bollywood brain Sandeep Chowtha, Saleem has been triggering the expectations of the audience since months.  Added to it, the boasting of of its high cost, which the producer pegged at Rs. 23 cr., certainly made the audience expect a fascinating technical stuff from the potboiler.  Bummer!  Yes, Saleem is a sour disappointment.

Watching the film, you will find it to be a fake exercise in doling out entertainment.  Thus, the name Saleem Faku, christened after the famous Radio Mirchi caricature, who speaks nonsense.  An able director like YVS Chowdhary, who bounced back with the youthful film Devadasu, has no sense of direction here.  The script does not know what it is up to.  Scenes are botched up rather sadly.  All the filmmaker wishes here is to make a masala entertainer, with generous skin show, tacky action, unappetising songs and mindless comedy.


What is the film all about?  Well, it is the story about how a brainless girl (Satyavathi played by Illeana) transforms from being a votary of Western culture (of the European variety to be specific) to a lover of the Bharatiya culture and its family system. (Making one, at the risk of being mocked at for trying to figure out a theme).  All it takes is just two or three scenes, spanning across the length of the film, for the heroine to convert.  So, what is all the rest of the film about?  You have the outrageously silly Satyavathi asking for three kisses from Munna (Saleem in incognito, played by Vishnu), wherever it is possible and even in a temple, Appala Nayadu (Mukesh Rishi, whose existence doesn't have a logic) baying for the blood of Napolean and his family, OJo (go and find out what it stands for, but Mohan Babu is playing it) who swoons in the presence of Kaveri Jha and goes on an indefinite fast-unto-death waiting for her for two days and runs a dreaded mafia in free time, and much more.  Desperately trying to make us laugh is Dance Master Ali (concept lekunda kalu kadapadu), who enters Napolean's household to teach dance, but who also fails, making us wonder why the respected head of the family would allow a skimpily-clothed sidekick to run amok in a chaste environment.


Coming to the plot, there enters one Munna into Illeana's household wanting to make her fall in love.  He tricks the family into believing that he is a purushottama and settles down as the important member.  While running his game plan, Munna (yes, he is an orphan) is converted by the affection showered by the family on their girl Satyavathi.  Keeping with the good tradition of the Telugu hero, he does not want to cause a stir in the family and break the idyll in the great Napolean household.  So, he tells Illeana that he can "close the windows" (pucca translation with due respect to the dialogue writer, which does a shoddy job) of his heart and leave the family (no faking, it's for real).  On her part, Satyavathi says that she is attracted to him and lustily follows Munna.  She wants, as already mentioned, to plant three kisses on him, each having its own  All we get to know before the interval bang is that she is only using the Munna with a ramrod valour to help herself elope with Krish, her Bangkok-based lover.


Hero moans and croons 'asathyavathi, asathyavathi.'  On board, Illeana clarifies to everyone that she felt suffocated with the love of a nuclear family.  Parents are heart-broken.  Hero now goes on a mission.  This is when you know Munna is a.ka. Saleem.


Watch the film at your own peril.  There are new-age mafias, where men are romantic and women are blood-thirsty.  The heroine does not squirm when her fiance invites lechers to quote a price for winning a chance to kiss Sathyavathi.


Performances are stupid, except Illeana who saves the day for her admirers amongst us.  Vishnu is pretty average. Mohan Babu must be thanked for allowing his assistant (Raghu Babu) to ridicule him.


Another disaster from YVS, who does not allow Okka Mogadu's legacy to die down.

Released on: 12th Dec, 2009