Shivamani Movie Review

Try to understand!

Movie Review By Raju Shanbhag

What’s the use anyway? You definitely won’t understand.

If I tell you that our forefathers have seen films like Shivamani in their childhood and our grandchildren will be seeing this again in their old ages, you just wouldn’t understand the concept. You see, it’s not about story anymore; heck, it’s not even about direction or narration. Now in Kannada industry, it’s just about chopping off heads and see who can take on more people at once.

I warned you earlier, you wouldn’t understand!

It would be blasphemous to see pure gems like this through the conventional eyes of aesthetics, logic or pure sense of cinematic knowledge. Hell, when the hero is fighting for you with as many people as the screen can hold, what kind of logic you are looking at? Haven’t you got a heart? When the hero loses his parents and meets them exactly after 22 years, wasn’t there a touch of moisture in your eyes? Ha, you have been seeing this for the last 22 years of KFI history. You didn’t cry then; what can anybody expect from you now?

The story of the movie itself would shatter your heart to tiny pieces. The hero is separated from his parents (yes, I am repeating it. So what? They have repeated this for decades and you watched without complaining!) He is raised by an-almost-would-have-been-don who doesn’t want him to fight anyone for any reason. The hero respects his father and usually doesn’t take to fighting. But whenever he does, a whole colony of people die and he flattens electric poles with bare hands. Even the director is afraid of inviting his wrath and keeps him quite for the most part of the first half.

But one item song and two rapes later, our hero just can’t keep quiet. This time he goes around and bashes up so many people, you feel that an entire city has lost its population. Just when you hang on to the edge of your seat for your dear life and pray that hero’s anger doesn’t turn on you………

…….there is one more item song introduced in the film.

I told you before, you wouldn’t understand.

You cannot believe that this is debutant director S. K Amarnath’s first film. While other lesser directors can barely manage with 5-6 rowdies fight the hero, Amarnath’s unbelievable talent allows him to place around 50-60 around Srimurali. While other lesser talents would naively searched for a story, Amarnath just has a machchu in his hand and the result is bloody serious! We’ll see how Amarnath directs a story when he actually does so.

Again, you wouldn’t understand if I say Srimurali has a tough job on his hands. What’s there to act? You might say. All he needs to do is to bash the bad boys, you might again say. But hold on; do you know how difficult it is to act with that bush like hair that keeps covering his face? To add to his woes, he has some goons for company who keep brandishing their weapons even when they are all alone. Good job Srimurali, and of course, pun intended!

Sharmila Mandre is another jigsaw puzzle in the movie, which I am sure you won’t understand. The director and the writers of the film are not perturbed by the fact that there is actually no role for her in the movie (that would ordinary mortals like us.) They boldly create a new space for her in the film; one that is absolutely not needed from the aesthetics point of view. But who cares? Probably they already had signed her before finalizing on the story.

Avinash, who is seen in almost every movie released these days, wears an artificial beard and tries to look bloody menacing. He is a fantastic actor, but it seems even he couldn’t hang on to Amarnath’s great thoughts and looks jaded in the end. Others such as Ramesh Bhat, Vinaya Prasad, and Shobharaj have been there, and seen that.

Music director Veer Samarth has probably takes his name too seriously and his background music looks like war cries to the hapless viewers. You again won’t understand what’s Suresh Urs doing with his editing skills in this project.

Even after reading this if you go and watch the movie, I won’t understand!