Cast: Balakrishna, Nayantara, Natasha Doshi, Hari Priya, Prakash Raj, Murali Mohan
Director: K.S. Ravi Kumar
Director K.S. Ravi Kumar who weilds the baton for the likes of Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Ajith Kumar, returns to Tollywood with Balakrishna starrer Jai Simha.
Jai Simha, a typical masala film, is for Balayya fans, and people who like mass films and Ravi Kumar suceeds in pleasing the front benches.
Balakrishna reprises a role he has played many times as Narasimha, and does it with his usual aplomb. His dialogue delivery is once again the highlight and then come the action scenes followed by his dances.
Narasimha (Balakrishna) travels with his one-year-old son searching for a place to live a peaceful life, and lands up in Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu. He takes a job as the driver to local temple chief trustee (Murali Mohan).
Soon enough, he settles a few issues in Kumbakonam and earns a name for himself but gets into trouble with local goon (Baahubali Prabhakar) and the DSP.
Narasimha is scouting for a babycare centre, and selects one which happens to be run by his ex-girlfriend Gowri (Nayantara) who is now married to the DSP. The rest of the film is spent in joining the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
Ravi Kumar is known for his masala and commercial entertainers. In Jai Simha, he keeps his focus on Balakrishna and plays on the actor’s strengths. The story — of a person trying to leave his past behind — has been told several times before. Ravi Kumar tailors it to suit Balakrishna.
The screenplay is clichéd. Though there are a few twists to the story, things quickly fall into place. A few scenes like the one at the temple where Balakrishna asks the DSP to apologise to Brahmins and those at the interval are done well.
Nayantara looks good and delivers a decent performance, Natasha Doshi and Hari Priya are not up to the mark. Prakash Raj is his usual self as the father.
Brahmanan-dam returns with Jai Simha but fails to generate humour. It appears that he has been overtaken by time, and his familiar expressions do not appeal. Murali Mohan is decent as the temple trustee, Ashutosh Rana as the villain goes overboard.
Cinematographer C. Ram Prasad films the locales and the action scenes well. The background score and a couple of songs of Chintanan Bhatt come up nicely. M. Ratnam’s dialogues are entertaining, the lines given to Balakrishna about puja deserve mention.
