Sugreeva Movie Reviews

Remember those arithmetic problems we used to solve in our primary schools? It goes something like this; if one guy can do x amount of work in y number of days, how many people will it take to do the same amount of work in z number of days? Producer Anaji Nagaraj and co. decided to find out, and they applied this elementary math in the making of Sugreeva, with 10 directors, 10 cameramen and countless other technicians to create a world record in the shooting time of the movie.

And although we have no clue as to how it helped the final output, we would still like to congratulate team Sugreeva, for this takes a herculean amount of coordination and dedication to create such record.

And now, the sad part. Sugreeva is a remake of 2006 flop Hindi movie, Tathastu starring Sanjay Dutt and Amisha Patel. The makers of Sugreeva have lifted the entire storyline and many sequences of the movie as they are; with subtle changes in characterizations and sequences. Sadly, this has happened with Shivarajkumar as the hero, the last man standing against remakes in KFI. But if you want see some humor in the sadness, eat this. The makers of Tathastu will not complain for not giving them the credit, because even Tathastu was a remake of another flop Hollywood film John Q, starring Denzel Washington.
And we thought only hits were remade!

Sugreeva is the story of a poor father holding the people in a posh hospital to ransom because the hospital refuses to carry out the heart transplant of his only son. Had it been original, the idea was novel, as this type of story is rare to be seen in Kannada. But there are irritants galore in the movie. For example, people who go to watch this movie to escape the boring reality shows on TV beware; as you will be subjected to almost a full episode of Kuniyonu Baara in this movie too!

Shivarajkumar deserves a special mention in Sugreeva. The man is there in almost every frame of the film and it’s not easy to do all that within 18 hours at his age. He exudes the pain of losing his child and his helplessness in saving his only son beautifully; although the gang of directors kill it later with needless dramatization and fights. Yajna Shetty does full justice to her second deglamorized role after Eddelu Manjunatha.

Strangely, the film has not compromised too much because of its unbelievably short shooting time, except the blur of the camera in few places and few changes with respect to Tathasthu to avoid outdoor shooting! But again, this brings us back to the question; how does shooting a film in 18 hours help the quality or even the business of the film. Some may argue that people will throng to the theatres to see the world record breaking film and hence, it will help the business of the film.

In that case, Idu Sadhya should have been a super hit!