'Bachhala Malli' is the latest box office release. Starring Allari Naresh in the lead, the film is bankrolled by Hasya Movies. In this section, we are going to tell you what the film is like and if it is worth a watch.
Plot:
The movie follows the tumultuous life of Bachhala Malli (Allari Naresh), a laborer at a gunny sack firm in the 1990s. Plagued by insane anger issues and irrational behaviour, Malli struggles to connect with others. His life, marked by drinking and petty quarrels, is a direct consequence of a traumatic childhood. Abandoned by his otherwise loving but helpless father (Balagam Jayaram), Malli is a wreck. As fate intervenes, Malli's life takes an unexpected turn when he falls deeply in love with Kaveri (Amritha Aiyer). Their love story, however, is far from smooth sailing, though.
Performances and Technical Departments:
Allari Naresh has an inferior way of approaching depressed, desolate roles. Instead of looking genuinely downcast, he comes across as just unkempt and dull. Telugu filmmakers believe a thick, messy beard is a substitute for performance. They ask their heroes to grow a beard first while they write the silly, irrelevant thing called script.
Rao Ramesh, as the female lead's father, looks uninvolved even in the most melancholy moment. Rohini, who maintains silences for a decade, opens her mouth when it is time for a monologue and instead of moving you, the decadal delay annoys you. This is the level at which the script operates, taking down the performances along with it. Balagam Jayaram doesn't bring depth to the role of Malli's morose dad. Hari Teja and Praveen play a married couple who have to show concern for Malli's suffering but they end up looking unconcerned.
Vishal Chandrasekhar's songs are the film's only sensible element. It's commendable that he gave his best despite having been busy with a big-ticket Prabhas project. The cinematography and the choice of locations are regular.
Post-Mortem:
Our story-writers have certain fixed (long-dead) rules in mind while penning village-based movies. If the film is set in the present, it must involve a death, a murder, a humiliation ritual, and an item song. If the film is set in the past, it must involve more of the same. Sometimes, instead of an item song, the male lead visits a loyal prostitute who lustily purses her lips after making out with him. Powerful men mediate conflicts during which powerless men suddenly show defiance like characters from R Narayana Murthy's movies. And the well-networked men who are supposed to know how to preserve themselves resort to extreme steps as if they have no other strategy in their textbook. In 'Bachhala Malli', the powerful man commits two grave crimes and, both times, he is literally there at the scene of crime. Why, you fool? To leave a trail?
The love track between Malli and Kaveri is cliche-ridden. Just too many of its done-to-death elements are bereft of drama and tension. Kaveri dreams of moving to Communist-ruled Calcutta in an era when all educated people were moving out of West Bengal. But this idiocy pales in comparison to the prank she plays on Malli in the name of love. You have to watch that immature scene to wonder who is a bigger fool in this film - Kaveri or Malli.
The film doesn't work even as a character study. Malli takes to smoking, becomes foolhardy and self-harming after a shocking incident at the age of 14 or so. He smokes in slow motion, insults his school principal, becomes a drinker, and takes pleasure in breaking the bones of muscular men (at a Jathara location, what else?). Never do we understand what his useless mother has been doing all along. Why the hell does she not open her mouth? In a scene, his estranged and less useless father says that he has been wanting to say something to his son. He could have as well conveyed it through his wife, right?
We are told everyone in the village fears Malli's whimsicality but we never feel it. The dialogues are sketchy. Nearly all the situations in the film have been seen in films belonging to the genre.
Closing Remarks:
'Bachhala Malli' is not just routine but also annoyingly dull. You wouldn't want to watch it even on OTT.
