Basanti movie reviewBOTTOM LINE
Lacks the punch.

Censor
” U/A” – Certified.

OUR RATING
So_So Rating


Basanthi Movie Review
What is “Basanti” about?
Basanti is a college where friends Arjun (Gautam), Abbas (Ranadheer), Dhanraj etc are completing their last year of the college. One day at a marriage function of Abbas, Arjun comes across Roshini (Alisha Baig) and falls in love with her instantly. During the same time a terrorist attack is planned in Hyderabad which leads to a hostage situation in the college that the friends study. How Arjun (Gautam) handles both the love issue and the hostage situation is what the film is all about.

How is Gowtam’s performance?
Gautam has shown improvement in terms of dialogue delivery but the same cannot be said about the other aspects of performance. The actor still has a rigid quality about him and is looking far from being a free personality on screen. There is a lot of scope for improvement and judging by the improvement in dialogue delivery he seems to be headed in the right direction.


Basanthi Movie Review
What about Chaitanya Dantuluri’s direction?
Direction by Chaitanya Dantuluri is a mixed bag. He has got few elements perfectly like the love portions in the film but the terrorism angle is not neatly handled. It gets problematic because the second half of the film mostly revolves around it. There is a grave hostage situation at hand but the way its executed one doesn’t feel any concern for the hostages at all. In the end everything is resolved in a very hush-hush manner without any spice.


Basanthi Movie Review
Other artists performance?
Alisha Baig is okay looking and doesn’t get much to perform either. It’s her dubbing which stands out as it nail the accent right for a girl belonging to such well educated and high society class. Sayaji Shinde plays his role with a great calm for a change. Ranadhir as Abbas is decent and so is Dhanraj as the joking friend. Tanikella Bharani as the always positively brimming father is given good lines and the actor makes them count like always. Actors playing the Muslim terrorist roles are downright silly.


Basanthi Movie Review
How is Music, Songs and other departments?
Music by Mani Sharma is used well on screen giving it a much greater impact. The senior music director once again shows his prowess with an amazing background score. Along with music it’s the dialogue writer Srikanth Vissa who shines in the film. His dialogues are a major asset to the film and they help is keeping the proceedings alive even though the situations seems highly contrived and predictable. Action by Dragon Prakash is alright. Cinematography is good. Editing is poor at places.


Basanthi Movie Review
Highlights?
Music and background score.
Dialogues.
Novel theme.

Drawbacks?
Flat uninteresting screenplay
Simple resolution of tense situation.


Basanthi Movie Review
What about the box office performance of the film?
Basanti has to survive on the word of mouth as the openings are at best average. And looking at the mixed word of mouth the film is getting it would be hard for the film to survive like is usual with such films. It also doesn’t help that the film completely lacks on the star power aspect which sometimes help the film sail through with good openings.

Did I enjoy it?
Partially.

Will you recommend it?
With great apprehensions.


OUR RATING

So_So Rating
Reviewed by Siddhartha