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Review
KANNADA
Mindless nightmare
KANASALU NEENE MANASALU NEENE: love story
Cast:Prakash Rai, Vineet, Ayesha Jhulka
Direction:Nanlunda
Hall: Aparna
Rating: *
He’s the poor little rich boy. Poor only because his parents are abroad. But he has lifesize pictures of his sweetheart plastered on the walls. He keeps talking to her, professing undying love. It’s only when he bumps into her at college that he’s tongue-tied.
She’s Chandana, mother to her three young siblings and with a father who still has to work to support them. She likes our hero but falls in love only when another student accuses him of raping her. Chandana knows that hero is in- nocent.
Hero is elated but there’s a thorn called Lankesh. Now, this guy has to sleep with every woman in sight. He doesn’t like no for an answer. He has all the money in the world so he throws wads of currency before the women can think of falling in love, He owns a jewellery store and uses a woman adorned only in gold for an advertisement. Heroine thinks it’s an insult to women and blackens it. Lankesh is livid; he uses heroine ‘s picture instead. Now she’s scandalised. So she walks into his fortress and gives him a stinging slap. Lankesh falls in love; it’s a triangle now.
Lankesh kidnaps her and keeps her captive at an island he owns. Of course he promises her that her chastity will be intact. He then tries to woo her with every ploy in the world. He even fetches the singer S.P. Balasubramanyam down to sing for her. Our hero is meanwhile sulking at home. So the rest is about whether heroine succumbs to Lankesh or whether hero saves her. Actually, neither happens. Curious?
Director Nanjunda makes a mess of all the four departments he’s in charge of — story, screenplay, dialogue and direction. The narration is very sloppy and the characterisation of the lead pair is terrible, especially the hero. His trump card is the character played by Prakash Rai but, by the end, you start getting irritated. The worst sequence is at the island where the heroine is held captive. There’s no effort by the director to reflect the anxiety of her family or the hero. Nor does the heroine look anxious to escape.
Prakash Rai is getting to be a most irritating actor. He has a good presence, an excellent sense of timing and immense talent but goes berserk when he doesn’t have someone to control him. If his career comes to a premature end, he’ll have none to blame but himself. That’ll be sad. The rest of the cast is just okay The film does have a couple of hummable numbers but there’re too many songs. The one with Ravichandran and Ramesh is terribly shot. Rajan’s photography is inconsistent. His outdoor wok is better.
Kanasalu Neene Manasalu Neene will not stay in your mind after you walk out but could give you nightmares.
S. Shiva Kumar
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