Film: Jolly Boy; Cast: Diganth, Rekha, Sudharani, Tara, Devaraj, Archana and others; Producer: K. Manju; Director: Sabhapathy Dakshinamurthy; Camera: Raana; Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja; Rating: *
K. Manju, who is a remake specialist, now comes out with ‘Jolly Boy’ which is a remake of Tamil film ‘Padhinaaru’, directed by Sabhapathy Dakshinamurthy.
The Tamil film, released just a few months ago, was a disaster. Despite that, the same director and the same background score by Yuvan Shankar Raja have been retained in the Kannada flick.
Sabhapathy has been directing films since the past fifteen years, but when you see ‘Jolly Boy’, it becomes amply clear that he has not learnt any lessons from the failure of his earlier films like ‘V I P’, ‘Punnagai Poove, ‘A Aa E Ee’.
Indushri’s (Rekha) parents oppose her relationship with Ganesha (Diganth) but agree to meet him for their daughter’s sake. When Ganesha comes to Indu’s house, he is handed over a novel written by her mother, Tara. Ganesha reads the love story. The flashback relates to Gopi and a young Indu whose love affair is resisted by their parents. Ganesha realizes that the young Gopi in the novel is Indu’s father and his childhood lover is now busy teaching students in Ooty. Finally Ganesha and Indushri decide to continue with their studies and then marry.
Sabhapathy’s lack of knowledge about the Kannada culture and nativity and films in general becomes abundantly clear within a few minutes of the screening of ‘Jolly Boy’. There is not even one sequence which can be connected to the Kannada audiences as the film is full of Tamil ethos and nativity. It has a lenghty narration and the Kannada film audiences may not be able to digest it.
Producer K. Manju is also to be blamed not only for remaking such a film but also for projecting a big star like Diganth in all promos of the film. In fact, Diganth has a minuscule role while veterans and child artistes hog the limelight.
Both Diganth and Rekha have performed so callously in the film that you may well feel that they were just trying to help out a needy producer.
Diganth and Rekha have not been able to make an impression in this film. Young actress Archana is impressive, while veterans Devaraj, Tara and Sudharani have aptly performed their respective roles. However, cameraperson Raana does a neat job.
Watching ‘Jolly Boy’ needs loads of patience.
