Mazaka, produced by Razesh Danda and presented by Anil Sunkara, was released in theatres today. In this section, we tell you what the movie is like.
Plot:
When Krishna and his middle-aged father Ramana fall in love with Meera and Yashoda, they are in for a shock. An unlikely rivalry threatens to collapse their love stories. Adding to their owes, they have to contend with a neurotically sociopathic businessman who has a stake in preventing them from succeeding.
Post-Mortem:
In Telugu cinema, family dramas are not made. It has to be a family entertainer or a family dramedy or a family action entertainer. Mostly, it is a mix of all the overdone elements from the over-exploited genres. Mazaka is no different. Writer Prasanna Kumar Bezawada's script is a hedge-podge of a quirky present and contrived backstories.
Krishna and Ramana are introduced as generally happy people who happen to pine for a family photo. So, the son has to get married but because nobody trusts a male-only family, he fails to find a marital alliance. All of a sudden, the marriage broker advises Ramana to get married. And, just like that, a day or two later, our Ramana comes across his soulmate at a bus-stop. This soulmate dresses like she has just stepped out of a beauty parlour.
And, in a strange coincidence, Krishna too bumps into his destined soulmate. The film has a litany of coincidences that never stop giving. By interval, this reviewer counted as many coincidences and contrivances as the number of Samosas in the theatre canteen. By the end of the film, the count increased to the number of popcorn flakes in my tub. Murali Sharma's psychopath character is made light of but the track at least lets us believe the film is aiming at something. As the story progresses, even this character becomes just a cog in the contrived wheel. The conversations between Sundeep's Krishna and Ritu Varma's Meera are Nibba-Nibbi type.
Sundeep and Rao Ramesh want to look cute but the missing innocence in their demeanours is there for all to see. The father and son engage in unserious, over the top ramblings passed off as conversations. Their relationship, as a result, comes across as a farce. When they don't look real, their feelings for Meera and Yashoda don't seem genuine either. When they attempt to write love letters, they don't do it to express their feelings but to keep the audience amused.
A flaw in a crucial character presents a rare dimension to explore in detail. The characterization, however, is patently generic. A lot of scenes, dialogues and character quirks we get to see in the first half don't land in retrospect. We don't indulge the film's brand of humour for what it is after a point. We question our assumptions and in the process lose the will to process what unfolds in the second half.
The lead men lose their loose tongues just to defer closure. They never knew how to talk straight but the level of overdoing on display in the second half is unwatchable. Even Murali Sharma's character's motives fail to cohere. Hyper Aadi does his typical Jabardasth things. Raghu Babu's lines should have gone to him, actually.
Leon James' songs are under-utilized. The making values are, quite frankly, mediocre.
Closing Remarks:
Mazaka makes for a tough viewing during the second half. Artificial plot-turns test your patience.
