Shamanthakamani Movie Review
Four actors teamed up for Sriram Adittya’s crime comedy Shamanthakamani that is based on a car theft. It has an interesting plot, but fails to engage the viewers with interesting screenplay. It offers occasional laughs, but disappoints on a whole.
Story :
Shamantakamani, an expensive Rolls Royce car worth Rs. 5 crore is stolen at a party. Krishna (Sudheer Babu) files a complaint with the police and CI Ranjith (Rohit) is assigned with the job of finding the missing car. In his investigation Ranjith finds three people as the prime suspects. A jobless, uneducated youth Shiva (Sundeep Kishan), a carefree guy Karthik (Aadi) and a mechanic (Rajendra Prasad) all are somehow connected to the car, but claim innocent. How does Ranjith solve the crime and who is behind the car theft?
Performances:
Nara Rohith is his usual self in the police character. He has done many cop characters in his career and is at ease as a corrupt police. Sudheer Babu’s character is emotional and he is good. Sundeep Kishan did well and leaves a mark despite less screen time. Aadi is also fine as the frustrated lover. Rajendra Prasad and Suman are adequate in their roles. Indraja and Chandini are okay in their limited roles.
Technicalities:
Sriram Adittya’s stylish taking makes it look like an expensive film despite the low budget. Director has good grip over technical elements but fails in writing an engaging script. Poorly written screenplay is its biggest drawback.
Mani Sharma’s soundtrack is ordinary but the background score is impressive. Cinematography is also impressive and editing stands out among the technical departments. Production values are decent.
Thumbs Up:
- Four Heroes
- Fairly decent second half
- Climax
Thumbs Down:
- Uninteresting screenplay
- First half
Analysis:
It is easy to grab people’s attention with four actors playing the lead characters. But to write an engaging screenplay by giving equal importance to all the characters is not that easy. Sriram Adittya clearly struggled to come up with an engaging screenplay.
He took so much time to introduce all the characters and establish a motive for them to take up crime. We cannot root for any of the characters including Sudheer’s who has an emotional back story. Director takes his own sweet time to get to the point of crime.
Car is stolen at the intermission point which is a perfect setting for engaging second half. Interrogation process seems interesting but none of the perspective stories of Rajendra Prasad, Sundeep and Aadi makes an impact after knowing them. Only point that hooks is the suspense about who has stolen the car.
Final reveal is cliched sans logic, but the finishing to all the characters is entertaining. Except for the ending Shamanthakamani doesn’t give a satisfactory feeling at any point of time. It is a very lame script with good setting and casting. Films like these have limited appeal and it will be hard to please the genre fans with such lackluster script.
Verdict: Bumpy Ride.
