Nani’s Paradise: Can Srikanth Odela Justify Mohan Babu?

Mohan Babu's intense Paradise role

Legendary actor Mohan Babu is playing the villain in Nani and Srikanth Odela’s The Paradise. The film is releasing in theatres this week on September 24. Mohan Babu recently visited Tirumala along with his son Manchu Vishnu. After the darshan, he expressed his wish for The Paradise to become a big success.

The film is said to have a strong emotional core involving Nani’s character Jadal and his mother Sammakka. Nani has already hinted that the mother-son emotion could stay with the audience even after the action and songs are forgotten. This also makes the conflict between Nani and Mohan Babu more than a routine hero-villain battle. Their confrontation is reportedly tied to the complicated relationship between Jadal and his mother.

Mohan Babu plays Shikanja Malik, a character with negative shades. There are also reports that he might play Nani’s illicit father, though nothing is confirmed. Industry talk suggests that Srikanth Odela has presented him in an extremely intense and violent avatar.

Even during his peak as a hero, he often played characters with grey and negative shades. Films like M. Dharmaraju and Rayalaseema Ramanna Chowdary showed how effective he could be in strong, character-driven villainism.

That is why The Paradise becomes an interesting opportunity for the veteran actor. His recent performance in Jayakrishna Ghattamaneni’s Srinivasa Mangapuram did not make any impact, and director Ajay Bhupathi failed to use his acting strengths. Now, Srikanth Odela appears to be giving him a much stronger character with plenty of intensity.

The real question is whether Odela has extracted the best out of Mohan Babu. If Shikanja Malik has the depth, menace and emotional weight as is being hyped, Mohan Babu could once again walk away with one of the film’s most talked-about performances.