'Narayana & Co', bankrolled by Papisetty Film Productions and Sukha Media, was released in theatres this Friday (June 30). In this section, we are going to review the latest BO release.
Plot:
PK Narayana (Devi Prasad) is a bank cashier whose career falls on the rocks after a mishap. Janaki (Amala), his doting wife, has blundered monumentally owing to her craze for sarees. Their elder son Anand (Sudhakar Komakula) has lost lakhs of rupees to cricket betting. Their younger son Subbu (Jay Krishna) must get hold of Rs 10 lakh to escape a potential scandal. The troubled family takes refuge in a crime, which they must pull off efficiently to bail themselves out. Can they?
Post-Mortem:
The initial scenes establish Narayana and his family as a set of messy individuals. His sons are irresponsible but he doesn't abuse them as perennial losers. Instead, he breaks into cinematic one-liners, much to the boredom of his family members. The younger son, with his perverse indulgences, doesn't quite look creepy. Thotapalli Madhu comes across as a dim-witted politician from the world of an Allari Naresh movie. Saptagiri peeves the would-be wife of the male lead.
Slowly and thanklessly, the film runs out of its innocence and humour after the first 20 minutes. By the end of the first half, things go from bad to worse as slapstick comedy, random repartees, and haphazard situations play out in full glory, testing the patience of the unsuspecting viewer. Visa is misspelt as 'Meesam' by a comedian.
In an episode, a dead body and the sobbing relatives around it are photographed by an amateurish photographer even as a wannabe model enjoys the sight. The scene should have been staged as a parody of a troll-worthy moment from 'Uma Maheswara Ugra Roopasya'. The film threatens to produce a separate track involving the male lead's brother. But thankfully, it drops the idea after a point. The adult jokes, cracked occasionally by this or that odd character, are immature and all too familiar.
The episode where Narayana's family stages a kidnap drama would have left the audience in splits had it harboured believable ideas and natural behaviour by the key characters. The comedy of errors involving inept characters and clownish uncles, the gaffes, and the songs reduce the film to the level of a generic comedy.
In the second half, the innocuous nature of the characters is completely forgotten in favour of a tonally inconsistent comedy style. Popular memes play out on Narayana's household TV in a bland fashion.
Closing Remarks:
'Narayana & Co' is an unoriginal comedy.
