Mithra Mandali film overview: This buddy comedy is extra noise, little enjoyable

In the Nineties and the early 2000s, the late director EVV Satyanarayana specialised in movies that relied closely on the calibre of their ensemble solid, greater than the leads. The premise would have a unusual hook and a objective to validate the presence of the solid. The laughs stored coming, and the movies got here with a minimum-guarantee worth on the theatrical market regardless of not having starring names.

While that model of filmmaking had misplaced its mojo for some time, the success of movies corresponding to Jathi Ratnalu, MAD, Om Bheem Bush and Aay marked their resurgence, with the tales centred on good-for-nothing buddies, in recent times. Mithra Mandali, helmed by debutant Vijayendar S, makes an attempt to capitalise on this success system, the place the plot serves as a pretext to have enjoyable with pop-culture references and developments rooted in Telugu tradition.

Mithra Mandali, by way of its central thought, is a love story that takes a jibe at excessive casteism and the way the lifetime of a wastrel trio nosedives when the daughter of an influential politician falls for one in every of them. It opens with a collection of scenes positioning a politician, Narayana (VTV Ganesh), because the torchbearer for his caste (with a fictitious title), who does no matter it takes to uphold its satisfaction.

Narayana ropes in a author to place collectively success tales of outstanding names belonging to his caste, however rips him aside when the guide doesn’t even final two pages. When he realises {that a} man from one other ethnic group donates blood to somebody from his caste, he kills each of them. He can not stand males/girls from one other caste even touching him, and has a reverent military that believes the identical.

When Narayana realises that his daughter Sweccha (Niharika NM) has eloped, he asks the cop to register a kidnap case as a face-saving act. The focus later shifts to 4 wastrels (performed by Priyadarshi, Rag Mayur, Prasad Behara and Vishnu Oi) entangled within the case. A flashback dates again to a subplot that unites Sweccha and the lads, leading to chaos.

The ‘Jathi Ratnalu meets Hangover’ model therapy has sufficient components to fireplace all cylinders — oddball characters, good backstories, eccentric conditions, a romance unfolding at a spoken English class, a parody on present-day influences — however the bland writing barely offers the vigour to brighten up the humour. The intent to make an unserious movie on severe social ills falls aside regularly.

While the self-aware comedy across the 4 aimless, debt-ridden pals losing their time, their tryst with English works in bits and items, the pivotal concern with the movie is Sweccha’s characterisation and her supposed love story. There’s a cheeky twist to the romance, however the man’s reciprocation of her love is taken as a right; you by no means know his facet of the story.

Sweccha, in most conditions, is handled like a mechanical plot system and not using a persona of her personal; we solely know that she learns martial arts/karate to be ever-ready for a day when she has to combat for love, braving her casteist father and his males. At occasions, you are feeling she’s too good to fall for the man and is solely enjoying dumb to get away from her dad.

Mithra Mandali, whereas nonetheless retaining its parody tone, may have had not less than one section the place the leads are honest to an emotion (with out enjoying to the galleries, say like Aay) and constructed the screenplay round it. The deadpan humour will get in your nerves, particularly within the second hour, and several other actors look clueless with the pitch of their performances.

There are flashes of the relentless laughter journey that the movie may have been — the comedy round a police station in an space named Janglipatnam that capabilities beneath an old-age dwelling, the presence of Sathya as a anonymous character who delivers high-handed preachy dialogues and not using a context and the ‘pulihora’ scene set at a temple. Otherwise, Mithra Mandali is extra cacophony than humour. 

The conversational songs that labored wonders for Little Hearts not too long ago are fairly forgettable right here (composed by RR Dhruvan). Desperation kicks in because the makers attempt to infuse some momentum into the proceedings with ‘Jambar Gimbar Lala’, modelled on Amitabh’s Mere Angne Mein, in a severe state of affairs. Though the final half-hour fares barely higher, the climax is a formality, nonetheless not witty sufficient.

Surprisingly, the favored names — Priyadarshi, Vennela Kishore, VTV Ganesh — wrestle with their timing/improvisation (maybe because of the inadequacies of the fabric). Rag Mayur, Vishnu Oi do their greatest to remain true to the spirit of the conditions, although the heavy-lifting is essentially finished by Prasad Behara and Sathya. There’s no uninteresting second when Sathya is round.

Niharika NM strolls round and robotically delivers her traces, struggling to rise above an underwritten character. Sathya Prakash’s humour across the lisp doesn’t explode sufficient. The extreme use of slow-motion photographs is one other dampener. 

Mithra Mandali might have seemed like a good leisure package deal on paper, although the cluttered and flimsy execution spoils the enjoyable.