JOIN USBangara S/O Bangarada Manushya
Kannada (U/A), Cast: Shivrajkumar, Vidya Pradeep, Srinivasamurthy, Shivaram, Sharath Lohithswa, Chikkanna, Honavalli Krishna
Director: Yogi G Raj
It is a return to the roots, literally and figuratively for Shivrajkumar. Four decades after his late father, thespian Dr Rajkumar, reprised the role of city-bred Rajeeva in Bangarada Manushya who fights for farmers’ cause, it is the turn of his eldest son. Shivrajkumar plays the titular role of a Milan-returned billionaire who takes up the cudgels of Rampura farmers against political establishment and crony capitalists out to usurp their land for setting up a glass factory.
The film, which uses a chunk of footage from the yesteryear movie, is, an ode to the film as also an obeisance to the late matinee idol.
Replete with hard-hitting dialogues exhorting farmers to rise in revolt if political mandarins have to be woken up to address their issues, Bangara is a cleverly and subtly scripted fare by debutant Yogi G Raj.
Like younger brother Puneeth’s Raajakumara, Shivrajkumar’s Bangara too plays upon nostalgia and reverence of their illustrious father.
Yogi’s Bangara seems a redux of Bangarada Manushya albeit with a modern setting in tune with Twitter/Facebook times, with established NRIs returning home to give back in kind to their hometowns .
Yogi has done well in encapsulating the troubled times farmers are facing — left to fend for themselves by an ungrateful society. What, however, makes Bangara a tad formulaic is its romantic and comedy tracks and action sequences. Bangara begins on a tame note in the picturesque Milan where romance blossoms between businessman Shivaraj, and Naina who infuses empathy in the stone-hearted beau. While Shivrajkumar essays his role with familiar ease, it is a fortuitous debut for Vidya Pradeep.