Chingari

Kannada (A)
Cast: Darshan, Deepika
Kamaiah and others
Director: Harsha A

Choreographer Harsha has grown as a director — he gets to ‘pen’ a story and screenplay with Yoganand and Santosh with his third film Chingari, cleverly camouflaging its origin, the 2008 Liam Neeson starrer Taken. The story of a cop who tracks down his girlfriend kidnapped abroad proves irresistible and with Challenging Star Darshan playing the smart and sauve cop, the director has a winner on his hands.

Circumstances bring an aspiring musician Geetha (Deepika) and a tough cop Parashuram (Darshan) together, but with a twist: She thinks she has fallen for a notorious robber!
Guess it’s got something to do with her brother who has been debarred from college and is into all sorts of unacceptable activities. Soon, it’s time for Parashuram and the brother to ‘discover’ each other, with tragic consequences for both. Misunderstanding ensues and Geetha is off to Switzerland with Amrutha to forget the incident.

Upon landing, the girls bump into an Indian who speaks Kannada, offers to share a taxi drive and even take them to a party — the last, after learning they are new to and alone in the city. Needless to say, both the girls are abducted but not before Geetha and Parashuram speak to each other and she leaves him clues.

Supercop rushes to Switzerland and finds himself in an inextricable mess, what with local cops at his heels. His ‘friend’ (Yashas, stylishly wasted) offers help but with a warning.
One which Parashuram doesn’t heed. He is joined by a translator (Bhavna) and the duo set out to rescue the girls...

The writers stumble in a few places while tailoring the script to suit native ‘requirements’. As such, Darshan demanding to know how two girls can travel abroad alone in these days is not convincing enough. But there are plenty of positives in Chingari.

Darshan finally “looks” the star that he is. All credit to the costume department, right down to the wig he sports in portions of his first duet with Deepika. Harsha and Venu, who has had a blast with his camera here, are intelligent enough to steer the focus away from the troubled actor’s facial expressions in some places. Mohan B Kere’s department deserves a pat on the back as well. Harikrishna, whose melody is drowned somewhat, is full “paisa vasool” in the background score.

Deepika acquits herself well for a newcomer––she emotes while looking drop-dead gorgeous, or thin, (depending on individual viewpoint). Bhavana, with yet another ‘bold’ act brings to mind the fetish for commodifying women - which the film touches, but barely.
This Chingari sputters out (for Darshan’s mass fans) after a brief brilliance.