Sheer waste of money. That is the feeling one gets when one comes out from watching this awful Kannada movie, Shivamani. It is a debut film for the producers who have spent loads of money in the making of this film, and also for director Amarnath who seems to have pledged his common sense while writing the story and screen play.
Shivamani is non stop torture from the word go. You pity young talented artists like Murali and Sharmila and top class technicians like Sree Venkat and Veera Shankar for being part of this nonsense.
Debutant director Amarnath makes a shoddy job of both the story and the screenplay. The characterisation is confusing and there is no consistency. Look at the way the director has weaved the character of the hero itself. Sometimes Sree Murali is shown as a person with a lot of violent streaks and in some other sequences he is extremely sober. Even the villain's characterisation lacks consistency.
The director is confused in narration too. There are more than ten fights in the film, and in each fight, the hero bashes up more than twenty villains using swords and a sickle. Amarnath has followed a pattern that was seen in the sixties where the villain shouts and screams most of the time.
Shivamani is an orphan brought up by Subbanna, a person who always takes pleasure in helping people. After some baddies in the college are thrashed by Shivamani, he gets into the bad books of underworld Don Naga. Meanwhile, Shivamani finds out his real parents but cannot reveal the truth that he is their real son. The film's climax sees Shivamani bashing up around thirty goons!
Talented actors like Murali, Sharmila Mandre, Avinash, Vinaya Prakash have not been projected properly in the film. To be fair to Murali, he fights well in the film and has tried to excel in some sentimental sequences too.
The film is digitally graded and Venkat's cinematographic work is good. Debutant Veera Samarth has delivered two nice compositions including the popular Moda Modala Nota.
Overall, however it's best to avoid this torture.
Rediff Rating: