Review: Businessman

Posted on the 14 January 2012 by Eynjuls @criticleo

Businessman

And the wait ended. Here comes the much anticipated venture of the year, Puri Jagannadh-Mahesh Babu’s Businessman. So, did this Pokiri duo churn out another power packed entertainer? Read on.

The plot:

Just when Commissioner of Police, Ajay (Nasser) took pride in announcing that he and his team has put an end to Mumbai’s mafia, Surya (Mahesh Babu), an aspiring Don, enters the scene with different plans. Confident and brainy, Surya is all set to takeover the underworld with no penny in his hand and no relevant contact in Mumbai. In his initial attempts to influence people around him and make his presence felt, our power craving hero assures to solve realty issues of local residents and befriends a wannabe Mayor (Sayaji Shinde) in the process. Then there is Commissioner’s daughter Chitra (Kajal) to love, hate and romance Surya.

The rest is about how Surya transforms into a highly influential Surya bhai and how he brings back the past glory to Mumbai mafia using his wit and tact.

Analysis:

The movie takes off promisingly and continues in a similar spirit for more than an hour. Later it goes a bit slow paced, but doesn’t get entirely boring. It is the witty dialogues that lead the movie. I can’t say the concept is unique, but the story of a wannabe Don is new to Tollywood. The director also deals with elements like politics, selfishness and how the extremely genuine rarely win in this big bad world.

Every character in the movie was aptly etched and there was no excessive drama or unnatural romance. You have no forced comedy track, but an added flavor of casual humor which is appreciable. And essentially, there were some thought provoking conversations which didn’t get preachy yet smartly convey the needful. The movie remains impressively to the point.

For Mahesh Babu Fans, there are enough of punch dialogues and heroic moments for you to drool over him. His costumes were oh so good. In terms of looks, this is his best after Athadu.

Visually, the movie scores a bang! Sir Osthara, Pilla Chao and Chandamama were shot very aesthetically and in some breathtaking locations. Though action scenes weren’t shot powerfully, the choice of locations was awesome.

On the flip side, you have very distracting background music and I really don’t understand why Thaman is getting many offers in Telugu Cinema. No song except Sir Osthara is hummable. And where is Mani Sharma or Devi Sri Prasad? Bring them back! They at least know which music to copy/recreate.

It’s been 6 years Pokiri hit the screens, but it seems like the movie still haunts Puri Jagannadh. From Desamuduru to Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap or now Businessman, you can sense a flavor of Pokiri in all of them. And especially the love track and building of situations between Kajal and Mahesh got highly repetitive. Even the Mumbai song, the way it was shot instantly reminds you of Pokiri’s Jagadame.

The supposed to be knock-down dialogue, “Main Mumbai ko peshav karvane aaya hun” didn’t really go well with Mahesh’s body language. Neither the number of little finger moments were appealing and they seemed like an awkward substitute for middle finger acts.

The climax fight scene was a huge disappointment. It was an irrelevant and a forcible end to the movie.

Actors:

Mahesh Babu wonderfully does justice to all his movies and this one is no exception. Action I feel is his forte. And we thought dance and romance are not for Mahesh, but with this movie he proves he can get into the skin of any character.

Kajal was merely a gorgeous doll wearing some elegant costumes. When it comes to performance, she was either blank faced or trying-hard-to-act as always.

It was good to see Nasser in a lengthy role and he did a commendable job.

Prakash Raj’s role was very small. He did a regular job and for once, I was bored of his expressions. Dharmavarapu will give us some laughs. Brahmaji was apt. Sayaji Shinde was impressive and Subbaraju was okay.

Final word:

The movie scores on Mahesh Babu, dialogues and visuals. It will entertain you for once. I will go with 3.25 out of 5.

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