Soundarya - Good Effort

Soundarya - Beyond .. Beyond.. your Imagination

Felt the tag line of the movie was somewhat queer when I saw it initially. Was wondering what the movie would be about. Since it is a movie starring Ramesh I felt it would be worth watching. The lyrics and music by Hamsalekha were quite interesting and enough to pull me to the theatre.

The movie starts off with a sneak peak into the land mafia which has spread its roots into the ever growing demand of land in this City of IT and BT that is Bangalore.[There are umpteen references to the city this way in the movie that it irritated me a bit :-) ] The events depict the hold of land mafia and influential people who make their business easy by using muscle and money power. These chain of events create an impact on the viewer and makes him aware of the fact that we are living amidst such circumstances even though we feel safe and seem to enjoy our life in our own way. Despite being far from these, how a commoner can get caught in these events and suffer forms the real matter of the story.

Ramesh(Ramesh) owner of a chemical company is a happily married man lives in Bangalore with his wife Soundarya(Sakshi Shivanand) and daughter(Baby Shreya). He gets into the matter of land mafia just because of a silly reason and has to listen obscene remarks and comments about his wife from one of the mafia lords, John. He gets enraged by this and decides to kill the person, poisons the person and dumps his body in a park. But later he starts feeling guilty about this sin after he starts getting anonymous calls to confess his crime. Meanwhile the investigation of the murder of the mafia lord is handed over to Prakash (Rahul Dev), Ramesh's best friend, who comes down to Bangalore and stays with Ramesh during the case investigation and keeps him updated about the turn of events. Guilt makes a major impact on Ramesh's mind and he decides to confess his crime to Prakash and he writes a letter to him telling all about the murder. But the letter is read by Soundarya and she in her efforts to save her husband writes a letter confessing that she killed the mafia lord. What does Prakash do? Does he take Soundarya into custody or is it Ramesh who is held responsible is the later part of the story.

A very good effort by the director E Chennagangappa who himself is said to have been in the real estate business in Bangalore. He has put reality into the events depicting the land grabbing incidents by means of false document creation, extortion, murder etc., just to be in the business. But he bores us towards the end of the movie with some unnecessary sequences and a dragging song in the sequence leading to the climax.

Ramesh is brilliant in the role and does his job very decently. But he seems somewhat uncomfortable dancing to the slow songs. He again proves that he is one of the very few talented actors who can handle all kinds of emotions well. Sakshi Shivanand irritates a bit with her mannerisms which are too much at times. Rahul Dev is good in the role of the CBI officer but the dubbing artist for him plays spoil sport. The voice doesnt suit his personality. Same is the case with Sakshi Shivanand. Baby Shreya adds life to her role with her innocent looks. An interesting cameo as a spiritual leader by Avinash puts us on the edge of the seat but ends up as a damp squib when his real identity is revealed. Shivakumar as John has done a good job. Lohitashwa is wasted in a bit role.

Songs with lyrics and music by Hamsalekha are great to hear. Hrudayada Maatu is nice song sung by Kunal Ganjawala but he needs Kannada pronounciation lessons badly. Soundarya the title song is good to hear, to which Sonu Nigam lends his voice. Alli Nodu Alli Nodu is a good number but shot unnecessarily in foreign locales. Adnan Sami crooning in Sneha Preeti is a good song but wrongly placed. I question at this point - why we should go for non-Kannada singers when we have ample playback singing talent here in Kannada itself.

Overall its an interesting movie with a crooked ending(atleast for a Kannada movie) - Worth watching once for a different story line and good performance by Ramesh. What needs to be seen is how will Kannada movie goers accept this movie with an unconventional ending. The ending is a bit Hollywoodish.... that might be the reason why the tag line is "Beyond.. Beyond .. Your Imagination" :-)