Sawaal - Review

Director B. Jaya, after giving romantic and family entertainers, has tried her hand at this totally mass-oriented movie Sawaal. This is her fourth film in series. The earlier two (Chantigaadu and Premikulu) being romantic love stories, and the third one Gundammagaari Manavadu, a family entertainer. Major strengths of the movie is selection of the lead pair – upcoming hero Bharath and Suhani, who made her debut as heroine, graduating from a child artiste. Good action episodes, songs and music are its plus points. Tirupati (Bharath) is a riffraff, who sells the movie tickets in the black. Though an orphan, he has the backing of about 10,000 people from a city slum, where he lives. Both the police and politicians are afraid of him. In order to get safe drinking water to the slum, he takes on a minister (Dandapani) and invites his wrath. A beautiful girl Keertana (Suhani) starts teasing the hero. New circle inspector of the area Narasimham (Sayaji Shinde) prompts Tirupati to become a police informer for the good of his own people. With the help of Tirupati, the CI takes on the Minister-supported brothels and drug-peddling. He is promoted as ACP. The two sit for a booze, when the CI insults Tirupati as a low-class fit for nothing fellow and no girl would love him. The cop also throws a challenge at him: If you can, make my daughter fall in love with you. If I lose, I will give you Rs. 10 Lakh. If you lose, you shall be my servant for ever. Taking the challenge, the hero comes to know that the CI's daughter is none other than the girl who has teased him. Meanwhile, baddie Vinayak (Vijayak), minister's son wants to marry Keerthana. The minister too waits for the opportunity to kill Tirupati. How the hero deals with all these problems and wins the challenge forms the rest of the story. Bharath (who made his debut with the film Tenth Class) acted with full ease and impresses the audiences in all wings of acting – stunts, dances, dialogue delivery and emotions. Debut heroine Suhani is glamorous and did a fine job without any flaw. Director Jaya succeeded in giving almost equal importance to all the characters in the movie. Sayaji Shinde's role as cop is hilarious. Villainy by Dhandapani and Vijayak is adequate. The combination of Brahmanandam-Kovai Sarala is good. Ali's appearance as swamiji at the climax is entertaining. The role of MS Narayana as star hero, which is similar to that of his role in Dubai Seenu, is comical, but comes as a deviation. Paruchuri Gopalakrishna appears as an MLA, rendering some dialogues in his own style. Story, screenplay and direction is by Jaya. She completely focused on the commercial elements such as stunts, songs and mass dialogues. Going by the title Sawaal, the audience expects some big action. However, the point is not that much powerful as the challenge is a silly one. Screenplay is interesting in the first half, but gets a setback in the second half. However, the climax is given an exciting touch. Action scenes are well canned. Cinematography is good. All the songs canned in beautiful locations in Karnataka are equally good. Music by Jesse Gift is a big asset to the film. Comedy is not missed.