Rating: 2/5
Introduction
Operation Duryodhana – the movie’s title taken from a portal’s expose exercise – has nothing to do with the original portal. It is just a name for name sake. Posani Krishna Murali, known for taking up out of the way subjects, has now targeted the voters and the general public. Scene after scene, he holds them responsible for the corruption and lawlessness in society. The movie opens with some interesting scenes, but the treatment falls in the genre of documentary, with generous sermonizing and gruesome violence. If you have a preference to logic, avoid the flick. If you are interested in the present day politics, you can watch it, if you have nothing better to do.
Plot
A naked (private part blurred) Bhagavantudu (Srikanth) walks down the roads carrying the chopped hands of a thug wrapped in a newspaper as a gift to a party leader Somasileswara Rao (Chalapati Rao). He squats like a dog at the feet of this politician. Soon he earns the confidence of the party secretary Ruchi (Mumaith Khan) and gets the MLA ticket. Promising to provide a seaport at the heart of Hyderabad, he wins the election. From then onwards, he becomes a pain in the neck to the Police Department. He instigates the public to attack the police, who in turn resort to mass resignation, followed by the resignation of the chief minister himself. The absence of the head of the government and the police establishment results in utter chaos in the state. In the climax, Bhagavantudu himself sets right everything. The reason for the hero’s seemingly skewed heroics forms the crux of the story.
Performance
Srikanth is simply superb in his dual shades as an honest cop Mahesh and a corrupt politician Bhagavantudu. His military-like hairdo and politician’s dress and mannerisms are good to watch. No doubt, this performance of playing two diametrically opposite characters will bring kudos to Srikanth.
Mumaith Khan performed well and won the appreciation of Posani Krishna Murali. She was exposed to the maximum with minimum dress cover in two song sequences and a massage scene. She also has some role to play like beating an MLA with a chappal in the climax sequence.
Chalapati Rao played the role of a greedy politician, whose death the hero plans with a pinch of snuff powder (mukkupodi). You have a pack of villains (call them baddies) played by some lesser known figures – as rowdies and political aspirants.
Kalyani appears as the wife of Srikanth. Her death is shown in a macabre way,as she is stoned to death, while her three kids die on the spot.
Dharmavarapu Subramanyam and Krishna Bhagwan episode is a parody on separate Telengana and Andhra agitations respectively. Venu Madhav and Duvvasi Mohan play the roles of their assistants. Brahmanandam and MS Narayana enacted the roles of MLAs. A lesser known artiste performed the role the chief minister.
Naga Babu played the role of an honest police officer, bringing changes in the society for effective maintenance of law and order, naturally impressed by the sermons of hero Srikanth.
Paruchuri Gopalakrishna appears as the hero’s teacher. His expression of certain words of appreciation is interesting.
Technical Details
This is completely the projection of the strong views of Posani Krishna Murali on the society. He wanted to say o clearly that the general public is responsible for its own fate, like the saying that the people get the government they deserve. His screenplay is cluttered with umpteen number of scenes of separate divergent tracks, confusing the audience. The narration speed is too slow ushering in a scence of boredom.
The opening scene in which Srikanth is shown fully naked is conceived as a stunning opening shot, but caused a lot of embarrassment to the female part of the audience.
The scene in which a crowd of minority groups attack Kalyani and kids is taken in a very repulsive manner. You can’t expect any sane person to stone children to death in the name of religion. The Hindu-Muslim tussle enacted by Posani is disappointing.
There is a good amount of body exposure on the part of Mumaith Khan to satisfy the front benchers. But, the songs transport you back to those club dances of late 70s and early 80s. .
There is lot of vulgarity in the dialogues and in a couple of scenes might embarrass the women crowds. The episode in which Srikanth rips the blanket off a victim of ragging making him stark naked at the college, is certainly an overdose of obscenity.
Cinematography is impressive. Comedy is good in bits and pieces. Music and background score are average.
Judgment
The movie, on the whole,, is utterly disappointing. Srikanth’s performance is the lone strength and the saving grace of the movie.