Sarkaru Vaari Paata

Starring Mahesh Babu and Keerthy Suresh

Written & Directed by Parasuram

Rating: ****

I purposely waited for all the storms to die down before reviewing this fabulous entertainer. A one-stop showcase for Mahesh Babu fans where, perhaps for the first time,he has let himself go completely . Mahesh Babu, still so boyish, suffuses the frames with his trademark charms.

There is an underlying message, and a hardhitting one at that, on bank loans and how the small loan victims are hounded while the big sharks who drive banks to bankruptcy go on with their lives unheedful of legal repercussions.

Mahesh Babu’s Mahi, a thriving financial agent in the US, decides to return home to Vizag to teach a powerful loan defaulter a lesson.It is gratifying to see Mahesh Babu take on the burdens of the middleclass without losing his zest for lightweight entertainment. The serious content never bogs down the blithe spirit of the narration.

This a very goodlooking film. Cinematographer R Madhi shoots his leading man in soft-focus lenses.Clearly the camera is in love with Mahesh Babu and so is the cameraman.

The rest of the cast in adequate but unremarkable. Leading lady Keerthy Suresh, so exceptionally raw and emotive just a week earlier in the Tamil Saani Kaayidham, is saddled here with the role of a stupid spoilt privileged brat who spends all her time in the US gambling in casinos, drinking with her no-good friends(her gal pals look like they never got rapped on their knuckles while growing up) and emotionally manipulating the hero. This may sound like an exciting complex role, but is just the opposite: a cardboard cut-out character whose only function is to serve as the purpose of mandatory over-madeup leading lady.

Having said this, it must be reiterated that Sarkaru Vaari Paata aims to be a fun take on the issue of bank loans. This, writer-director Parashuram succeeds in doing thanks mainly to Mahesh Babu’s proclivity to project sincerity and integrity underlined by a sense of ongoing mischief even when confronted with a snarky villain(Samuthirakani) who, we are told, “controls” much of Vizag but is unable to rein-in the hero’s rectification drive .This includes a gripping action piece of the hero hand-delivering a bank notice to the archvillain after overcoming many layers of gauntlets to reach the villain’s fortress.

There is a constant effort to generate interest in the goings-on. Most of it works. The logistics of getting even don’t always make sense. But just the pleasure of watching Mahesh Babu take on the goons so effortlessly makes Sarkaru Vaari Paata a treat for his fans.