Review: Alias Janaki - an honest attempt

Well intentioned. We live in morbid times. Our faith in the system is definitely eroded. Rape and corruption is an everyday occurrence and the citizen is yawning at it rather than shouting against it. Societal trauma has been replaced by a cynical indifference and the result is for all to see in the polity.

Today when a filmmaker decides to take on a tale of rape and lace it up with corruption, you yawn and say `Oh! Not again!' More so when the end product lacks grip and is characterised by an amateur approach.

Our protagonist Janaki Ram (Venkat Rahul) is a straight forward guy who has been tutored by Dad (Nagendra Babu), a teacher. Influenced by the teachings and the life style of his Dad, Janaki is exposed to the big, bad world.

As a government servant, he decides to fight the bad and the corrupt. As Lal Nagar lands are up for grabs and the bad guys who are beating up people and making pulp out of them find the going tough with his presence.

He works in an office where no one is at work and his boss (Tanikella Bharani) is corrupt but with a soft corner for the idealist colleague.

Before you can say alias, Janaki falls in love with neighbour Chaitra (Anisha Ambrose) who plays the most ill-sketched character in the film. We do not know after the entire film whether she is innocent or stupid, exploitative and manipulative or warm and caring.

Never mind, these details engage no one, not debutant director Daaya. So resultantly we have two tracks: the romantic where the two are either in fine locales mouthing melodies (and good ones at that!) or are in the midst of chronology defying emotional trouble.

As a result, the love story is a non-starter. The other track is the simmering anger in the protagonist who is out to be a oneman protest against injustice and corruption. Rape is the added flavour. So he is out to save a rape victim ( Sri Ramya) from the hands of the villain Maisa (Shatru) and his gang of unkempt guys.

The best feature of the film is that it is short. In fact the filmmaker shows a lot more promise in the romantic scenes than in the violent ones and is a good idea for him to test his wares with the former.

Tanikella Baharani is sincere and worth watching as always. Anisha Ambrose has screen presence and some day may be called upon to perform. Venkat Rahul comes with genes and thus the expectations are high.

He does everything you don't expect from a normal hero making his debut. He is quiet, reticent, hesitant and interesting and not the guy who is belting well choreographed numbers at the drop of a hat. He has a long way to go and brush up his raw areas though he is promising.

Technically the film has some fine music and noteworthy cinematography from Sujit Sarang. Brevity is the soul of wit, the Bard said and this film reflects the virtue of brevity.