BOTTOM LINE
Raid Gone Wrong
RATING
1.75/5
CENSOR
U/A, 2h 38m
What Is the Film About?
Indukuri Anand aka Mr Bachchan (Ravi Teja), is a full-time Income Tax official and when not on duty is a singer for the local orchestra in the town. He is a sincere guy and does his duty with sincerity. One such raid has him suspended which makes him come to his home town.
When in the town, Mr Bachchan falls in love with a local girl Jikki. While he goes on the love journey an incident makes him the target of Mutyam Jaggaya (Jagapathi Babu), a powerful politician in the nearby locality.
The core story of Mr Bachchan is how the personal and professional life of Bachchan is intertwined with Mutyam Jaggaya. What happens in the end is all the movie is about.
Performances
Mass Maharaja Ravi Teja is given his usual elements – action, comedy, romance and heroic dialogues as usual. He goes through all these elements in his usual style – sometimes subtle and sometimes over the top. But, it works nonetheless making him the sole highlight no what how things turn out.
The difference between Mr Bachchan and his other outings is that he gets to impersonate his idol, the legend Amitabh Bachchan in a few parts of the movie. Otherwise, it is the same all over again for him.
Bhagyashree Borse is another new find for the Telugu film industry in Heroine Corridor who is a ‘heroine’ in the typical sense. She has the glamour, fits the various attires, dances decently and could easily pass off as the love interest of the hero. She is fine in all these aspects and has nothing much to do. In the second half, she appears only when the need for the song arises in an elaborate set-up.
Analysis
Harish Shankar directs Mr Bachchan. It is an adaptation of the Bollywood movie Raid. It is very little of Raid and is more about the commercialization of the original concept. It isn’t new for Harish Shankar as he has done similar work with Gabbar Singh and Gaddalakonda Ganesh.
But then, that is the actual problem. People saying Harish handling remakes very well may have got onto his nerves. The pressure is so evident that he messed with everything. When you better a remake, you at least need to retain the skeleton and add ‘commercial elements’ on the top of it. Harish did not even retain the Skeleton.
The Entertainment and the dialogues which happens to be Harish’s strong points have also gone wrong. The Satya track was a bag of many misses with some double-meaning dialogues being horrendous. Sathya does his best, but there is hardly any memorable line writing-wise for him. It feels outdated and out of sync. Simultaneously, it doesn’t blend with the main story. The romance track is also so disappointing without substance. The heroine looks nice and the songs worked.
Also, there are some jump cuts in the first half. Scenes start racing and at a place or two, we may even feel there are big jumps skipping some connections.
Another aspect that hurts the narrative is the insertion of Hindi tracks as homages or to create a nostalgia factor. At some point, it becomes never-ending and exhausting. Will Telugu classic songs work in their place? Maybe but we do not know.
After all that happens in the name of entertainment we get to the core content related to the raid around the interval mark. The sequence is alright, but the bang is missing. Despite many misses, we do not feel everything is done after the first half. We are left with a hope things will get better.
The Income Tax Raid should be handled with a certain degree of seriousness to drive the point home. But still Harish Shankar struck to the commercial formula. Jagapathi Babu who appears like a serious villain until then turns pauper in the process.
The comedy track involving Chammak Chandra and one romantic track of Annapurnamma (You read it right) are dreadful. There is a Guruji character which gives us a feeling that Harish is settling scores with another director in the industry. The comedy is outrightly cringe.
The story is diluted with the entertainment touch-ups and finally, the face-off between the hero and villain is terrible as the latter turns into a dummy of sorts. There is a track where the CM and PM are involved. And there is an Annapurnamma connection as well. This particular track is so painful.
The intermittent heroine bits to have songs only add to the length and make the already formulaic proceedings even more so. The second song in the second half is a classic case in this regard as despite it being right one loses interest by that time.
By the time the climax arrives, one is just going through the motions to reach the predictable end. There is no impact whatsoever.
Overall, Mr Bachchan is severe disservice to the subject (Raid) and the amount of resources spent on the film. This happens when you try to much to have your mark leaving the basics while handling a remake. It neither works as a commercial entertainer nor as a sincere subject dealing with a serious issue like Black Money. The Entertainment and Romance that is added only makes the film cringe and fail. Even if you have low expectations from a ‘Mass Outing’, you may still skip it.
Performances by Others Actors
Just writing the names of all the artists that are part of the movie would take up space that would be equivalent to half of the review written above. And yet despite such a large presence of the actors, none get anything to shine.
Among the supporting cast, comedian Sathya and Jagapathi Babu as antagonist get some scope. Unfortunately, both are wasted while doing their routine stuff.
There is a brief cameo appearance by the young star on the brink Siddhu Jonnalagadda. He breezes through the sequence in his usual style despite the tonal issues and its jarring nature.
Music and Other Departments?
Mickey J Mayer does his best to keep the momentum going with his bombastic background score. It is alright and so are the songs with decent hooks in them. The cinematography is neat. There is an undeniable quality in visuals. The content is the issue here. The editing could have been better. But, then half of the movie would have gone. The writing shows sparks that Harish Shankar has still got it, unfortunately, for him the small sparks aren’t enough to overcome the lengthy narrative.
Highlights?
Ravi Teja
Fights
Songs and BGM at Times
Drawbacks?
Outdated Execution
Formulaic Narrative
Poor Handling Of Core Plot
Poor Entertainment Additions (Annapurnamma Track for Example)
Feels Very Lengthy
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
No. Watch the original instead which offers far more gripping narration in much less runtime.
Mr. Bachchan Movie Review by M9
