Urban love mounted on violence

Ganapa
Kannada (A) Director: Prabhu Srinivas
Cast: Santosh Balraj, Priyanka, Petrol Prasanna

Short, sweet and stylish. That’s Ganapa for you, superlatively done by director Prabhu Srinivas. Spotlighting Bengaluru’s underworld, Ganapa is an urban romance with rowdyism as the pivot. Director Prabhu Srinivas, who has earlier helmed romantic sagas, goes for a snazzy plot here to press home his film’s tagline: He is no rowdy at all who has not been felled before 40.

Ganapa also boasts suave stunts, and despite overt emphasis on violence, turns out to be an interesting outing. It reminds you of earlier underworld films like K M Chaitanya’s Aa Dinagalu and Sumana Kittur’s Edegarike. Despite misgivings as to why filmmakers keep focussing on violence and vendetta while narrating romantic tales, one warms up to Srinivas’ cinematic craft and narration.

Instead of cerebral cinema, he comes up with one that celebrates romance and human foibles.

At the pith of Ganapa is the bitter rivalry between Jayanna and Muthanna, who once broke bread and lorded it over City Market collecting mamool and controlling Bengaluru’s realty scene.

Their bonhomie, after joining forces to eliminate their arch enemy, is blighted when Jayanna presumes that Muthanna was responsible for a bid on his life. Jayanna is saved in the nick of time by a simpleton who calls himself Tyre.

A grateful Jayanna brings Tyre into his fold and anoints him as Ganapa. With Muthanna’s son swearing vengeance against Jayanna for his father’s death, Ganapa becomes a stumbling block. Meanwhile, Ganapa falls in love with Brinda, thanks to a lost mobile phone. But then, cupid never cruises a smooth course in cinema.
Watch Ganapa for the freshness it brings to engage and entertain.