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Monday, February 10, 2025
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KANNADA JOLLY BOY
EDITOR'S PICK
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.
