'Kode Muruga' review: A wasted opportunity

Kode Muruga

Kannada

Director: Subramanya Prasad

Cast: Subramanya Prasad, Muni Krishna, Pallavi Gowda, Ashok Sharma

Rating: 2.5/5

A movie within a movie is always a great idea. ‘Kode Muruga’ is a take on the struggles of an aspiring filmmaker. It had potential to be a heart-warming film laced with humour. But a combination of weak writing and a ‘message-heavy’ approach turns it into a wasted opportunity.

Every rookie director is frustrated at lack of opportunities. So is Subramanya Prasad, who also plays the lead. ‘Kode Muruga’ begins in a promising fashion with a young filmmaker struggling to find a team for his dream project.

The ‘ugly’ face of the industry shows up as producers prefer their sons to play the lead roles, villains are concerned about their on-screen image and later on, the money-minded distributors are hard to convince. The popular notion is that the industry is a tough place to survive and Prasad tries to explore it.

Circumstances force him to cast Muruga (Muni Krishna) as the hero despite him not appearing anywhere close to a typical ‘commercial cinema hero’. He is dark-complexioned, bald and moustache that reminds us of Veerappan.

Expectedly, Muruga is ridiculed for his appearance but the humour is too loud and repetitive. The ear-splitting background score is the film’s biggest drawback. It’s funny and ironic how a film that says ‘the script is the hero’, surrenders to the ‘masala film template’ by needlessly accommodating a fight scene and a couple of songs.

People watch ‘small’ and content-oriented films for their themes and do not expect unheralded names to do ‘star-acting’. Prasad does that at the cost of losing focus on the film’s subject. His dead-pan expressions make us emotionally detached from the character.

In the end, the hero is seen performing a long monologue on how the film industry must welcome newcomers. If only he had shown that in an engaging manner, ‘Kode Muruga’ could have been a winner.