“And they lived happiely ever after..” flashed on screen at the end for 10 seconds. Yes, notice that obvious typo. The movie was as careless as this mistake.
Basthi marks the debut of veteran actress Jayasudha’s son – Shreyan. Directed by Vasu Manthena, the movie title was caption as ‘A daring saga of love’. Well the caption lacks clarity. What does daring refer to here? After the movie finishes with one of the worst climaxes ever, definitely it would be inferred that the caption actually meant ‘Dare you watch this saga of love’.
Basthi Movie Story
The movie begins with a voice-over of Sai Kumar describing the two important gangsters in the basthi. The first gang is currently led by Ammiraju (Mukesh Rishi) and the second one by Bhavani (Abhimanyu Singh). Though Ammiraju wants to end rivalry, the hot-headed Bhavani is always in a mood to be at loggerheads. Bhavani rapes and murders Ammiraju’s henchman’s daughter. To teach him a lesion, Ammiraju in turn kidnaps Bhavani’s sister Sravanthi (Pragathi).
Meanwhile, Ammiraju’s brother, Vijay who lives in U.S comes for a visit to Hyderabad. He finds Sravanthi kidnapped at his home. They both soon become friends and gradually fall in love. Sravanthi starts feeling happier than ever and they both decide to tie the knot. The rivalry between the two gangs becomes a potential impediment to their goal of living “happiely” ever after. How Vijay and Sravanthi “daring”ly fight for their love is the rest of story.
The first of the film had watchable proceedings with story moving at a decent pace. The second half transitions from being just a bearable film to a completely annoying one. With a completely predictable story and a terrible screenplay, the film suffers a very bad treatment. The actors don’t impress either.
Shreyan has good looks and resembles a slimmer and taller Yuvraj Singh. His dubbing made his presence tolerable. He was very inefficient in enacting any emotion. There was absolutely no impact in any of the scenes. Likewise the heroine Pragathi was equally lifeless. Abhimanyu Singh does some over-the-top action which can only make you feel irritable. Snigdha (of Ala Modalaindi fame) tries hard to draw some humour but succeeds only to an extent. Ali, Saptagiri appear in insipid cameos.
More than the actors, it was the script that extremely clichéd and boring. It is a film that should have been trashed into the dustbin at the writing stage itself.
If there is anything remotely good about the film, then it is the music. Of course, it came as the best of the worst aspects delivered by the film.
A terrible debut for the towering personality Shreyan.
