Nov 25: Film: "Drama"; Cast: Yash, Radhika Pandit, Neenasam Sathish, Sindhu Lokanath, Sampath Kumar, Suchayeendra Prasad, Lohithashwa, Rockline Venkatesh and Malavika Avinash; Writer-Director: Yogaraj Bhat; Producer: Jayanna and Bhogeendra; Music: Hari Krishna Camera: S.Krishna; Rating: ***1/2
Talented writer-director Yogaraj Bhat is certainly the most popular name in the Kannada film industry today.
He has achieved a comfortable degree of success in his new attempt which is packaged with old time masala. He has retained his distinctive style of narrating a film with good song picturisation and fun-filled one-liners and a bit of thrills and action sequences perfectly.
The strength of "Drama" is some powerful performances from young and veteran artists along with interesting dialogues penned by Bhat. Its songs, which had attained lot of popularity before the release of the film, are also good. However, the negative points are that the film's narration drags and the logical elements miss out at crucial moments. Some sequences seem like forced inclusions, and these could have been edited.
The film starts in a village in Mandya where two youngsters Venkatesha and Sathish, who have failed their pre-degree courses seven times, create problems. Nandini, an ultra-modern girl comes to the village and attracts Venkatesha, who is prepared to do anything for pleasing the girl. Both Venkatesha and Sathish follow Nandini to Mysore, where she is pursuing studies.
A strict principal of the college humiliates Nandini when she crosses the limits. Meanwhile, the principal gets murdered and a police officer suspects Venkatesha and Nandini to be behind this murder. There is a lot of confusion when it is revealed that Nandini is the daughter of a Dubai-based don, who is trying to kill a Mangalore-based don. What happens in the end is revealed in an interesting climax.
Yash has done a fantastic job in the role of Venkatesha, famous for his childish and irresponsible pranks. He has certainly shown maturity in acting. Neenasam Sathish is another actor who shines in the film. Radhika Pandit is superb as a performer and her beautiful looks and style has added a special charm to the film. Sindhu Lokanath's role is not well-defined. All the veteran artists fit their roles very well.
The film's highlight is the remarkable camerawork of S.Krishna, who is arguably one of the country's top directors of production. Hari Krishna's song composition and background score is exceptionally good.
Despite a setback in "Paramathma", director Bhat is perhaps one of the few directors who makes films that have some visible attractive value in bringing out middle class family audience and youngsters into the theatres. His latest film "Drama", made under the same banner as "Paramathma", shows that Bhat has tried a different path.
"Drama" is a film that genuine Kannada film audience can not miss. It may have its pitfalls, yet it bears the stamp of Yogaraj Bhat's talents. Watch it!
