Gaayapadda Simham Review

Tharun Bhascker has been trying as an actor for quite a while now without success. He finally decided to take a break and concentrate on his direction career with ENE Repeat. He had announced that Gaayapadda Simham will be his last film as a Hero for now and the movie releases today marking the directional debut of Popular Short Filmmaker, Kashyap Sreenivas.

What is the Story About?

Dharahas (Tharun Bhascker) is in love with a girl (Manasa Chowdary) but when they go to her father (Anish Kurvilla) who is adamant about marrying his daughter only to a guy settled in US like his son. Dharahas approaches a consultancy for Visa and goes to US but only to get deported immediately and from there, Dharahas vows to take revenge on Donald Trump. What happens next forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Tharun Bhascker is a good actor and he delivered a neat performance in the film. But his physique definitely needs to be better to play the hero characters. That was clearly visible in certain sequences and particularly in the Salaar spoof sequence. Sree Vishnu in an extended cameo is good in his performance but it barely creates an impact in the overall proceedings.

Manasa Chowdary and Faria Abdullah are more of cameos in the film. JD Chakravarthy looks superbly fit and appealing in the antagonist character but his character lacks meat. Director Kashyap Sreenivas also plays hero’s sidekick in the film and is adequate for the character. Subhaleka Sudhakar gets a reasonably good role and he is fine.

Technicalities:

Kashyap Sreenivas directs Gaayapadda Simham. It has got a simple but a promising premise. The director chose a good line but faltered in execution. Entertainment works towards the end in the Spoofs but did not work at the places where needed. Vidya Sagar Chinta’s cinematography carries a dated vibe. Production design at places also give a similar feeling. Sweekar Agasthi’s songs fail to register and so is the background score. Viplav Nyshadham’s Editing fails as he could not contain the drag at several places.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Interesting Storyline
2.⁠ ⁠A Couple of Spoof Comedy Episodes

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Lack of Original Ideas
2.⁠ ⁠Poor Writing
3.⁠ ⁠Uneven Narration

Analysis:

The Story – a young lad goes to the United States of America for his love but gets deported immediately. He then seeks revenge on the president of America, Donald Trump, for deporting him. Sounds interesting & intriguing? Yes, the plot indeed is exciting. The concept of Deportation was never used in Telugu films in the past. The core plot of the film has the potential to become a quirky comedy drama but the directors in ability to blend JD Chakravarthy’s character seamlessly into the core plot, worked against the film.

Since there’s not much content run the film throughout on Tharun Bhascker’s character, the director relied completely on illogical slapstick spoof comedy episodes and introduced the character of Sree Vishnu. A couple of spoof episodes worked and the black magic comedy portions on Sree Vishnu, worked to an extent but they were sufficient to pull off the film into safe zone.

Running a film entirely on spoof and farcical episodes is an art which not many directors can pull off. While a couple of those farcical comedy portions worked, a majority of other portions misfired and ended up dragging for no reason.

Overall, Gaayapadda Simham’s plot had to potential to become a quirky comedy drama like Money(1994), Jathi Ratnalu(2021), etc., but the lack of original ideas while writing, worked against the film.

Bottomline: Outdated Comedy

Rating: 2.25/5