Cast: Priyadarshi, Niharika NM, Rag Mayur, Vishnu Oi, Prasad Behra, Vtv Ganesh, Vennela Kishore, Satya
Crew:
Cinematography by Siddharth SJ
Editing by Kodavati Pavan Kalyan
Music by RR Dhruvan
Written and Directed by Vijayender S
Produced by Bhanu Pratapa, Bunny Vas, Vijender Reddy Teegala, Kalyan Manthina, Somaraju Penmetsa
Mithra Mandali starring Priyadarshi, who delivered a big blockbuster like Court, released now. The movie is a screwball comedy with influencer Niharika NM debuting as leading lady in Telugu. Rag Mayur, Vishnu Oi, and Prasad Behra are cast along with VTV Ganesh, Vennela Kishore and Satya in this film. Let’s discuss about the movie in detail, which marks Bunny Vas first independent production, without Geetha Arts.
Plot:
Narayana (VTV Ganesh) belongs to Tutte Caste and he wants only his caste to prevail. His daughter Sweccha (Niharika NM) wants to marry someone from other caste as she doesn’t want to inherit her father’s blind hatred to other castes and deep love to his own. Four Friends, Chaitanya (Priyadarshi), Satvik (Vishnu Oi), Rajiv (Prasad Behra) and Abhay (Rag Mayur) form a Mithra Mandali group and they are good-for-nothing. They like to drink, play and have fun all the time. Satvik and Abhay fall in love with Swecha but she falls for Chaitanya.
She decides to elope with Chaitanya but Narayana wants to convert it into a kidnap case, so that, his image in front of his caste members won’t be spolied. He wants to become MLA of Junglepuram, his native. He tries to use SI (Vennela Kishore) for this and as he offers him huge money, SI accepts. On the other hand, an Important Character (Satya), keeps solving the case, even before SI. On the other hand, due to fear of Narayana, Mithra Mandali tries to use all tricks in their armour to stop Chaitanya and Swecha’s marriage. Were they successful? Will Narayana realise his mistakes? Watch the movie in theatres to know more.
Analaysis:
Priyadarshi is good in few scenes but he is not in the same league as of Naveen Polishetty to pull off few scenes that are inspired from Jathiratnalu. Interestingly, he is also part of that cult comedy. Here, while he tries hard, the scenes do not click and sit in perfect meter to evoke laughter. Each scene is just dragged out of bits and writing grows from trying hard to be funny to irritating.
Rag Mayur, Vishnu Oi and Prasad Behra get most of the scenes but none of them really click. Their antics are also too loud to extract any sort of fun in this dialogue based screwball comedy. The situations does have potential but writing, execution lacks any sort of finesse to fulfil that potential. Niharika NM has good comic timing in her reels but she could not bring the same to big screen, at least, in this film.
VTV Ganesh, Satya and Vennela Kishore tried their best and they got loudest cheers but they could not really give any sort of energy to already dull writing. Their performances made them at least watchable to an extent at several places. The movie needed mad and inventive writing but the director seems to have gone for low hanging fruits. Rather than investing audiences into the world of the film, the narrative does the opposite.
With such good performers, the movie needed interesting moments piling up rather it feels like a satire that falls way short of the target. Rajendra Prasad did these sort of films in late 80’s and early 90’s and the film needed to bring new-age set-up to the same premises like how EVV Satyarayana could to Allari Naresh starrers in his direction. Overall, Mithra Mandali group doesn’t excite audiences to join them in fun activities.
Bottomline:
Mithra Mandali is too draggy and boring for a riveting comedy that it aims to be.
Rating: 2/5
Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this review are personal views/opinions shared by the writer and organisation does not hold a liability to them. Viewers’ discretion is advised before reacting to them.
