Saakshyam Movie HD Released

 

Indian cinema is not new to films made with a supernatural theme or films about karma. But Sriwass' latest potboiler Saakshyam is perhaps the first film in history of Indian cinema where the protagonist's role is almost irrelevant in a revenge drama. The entire revenge tale is scripted by nature and the rest of the characters (each of them poorly etched) are merely pawns. This is neither a family entertainer nor a romantic love story. It's not even a supernatural thriller. Saakshyam is more about a filmmaker clumsily presenting his beliefs to the audience and stretching it to nearly three hours — a real test of patience and endurance.

A gang of four evil goons led by Munuswamy (Jagapathi Babu) torture innocent villagers, massacre an entire family and bury all the evidence, except a toddler, who is miraculously saved by a cow. The narrator (voice by Prakash Raj) keeps harping on the fact throughout the film that when all evidence is destroyed, nature plays the role of the prime witness.

The toddler grows up to be Vishwa (Bellamkonda Sreenivas), son of a business tycoon. Despite being an heir to a huge business empire, he ends up being a video game designer. He goes flyboarding and sandboarding in Dubai and designs a perfect game but he needs a traditional element to make it work, and almost on cue, in comes Soundarya Lahari (Pooja Hegde), who teaches Indian culture in a Temple in New York. He instantly falls in love but they don’t hit it off straight away and he goes chasing after her to India, to the very same village where he witnessed tragedy as a toddler. The four evil men are still committing atrocities and getting away with it, but can they escape nature's wrath?

Make no mistake, Saakshyam is all about director Sriwass' vision of nature punishing a bunch of goons for their crimes. Everything else is a farce, and the director takes all the other characters, as well as the audience, for granted. It seems like there was no effort made to pay attention to some of the other elements in the film. To call the scenes involving the lead pair a romance would be a joke. Sample this, our hero falls in love with a traditional, Bhajan-singing girl. The girl is then forced to teach him samskruthaalu for his video game, because he helped her uncle get a job (All he had to do was call up the CEO and tell him that they were friends. Not only does he get a job, but a promotion as well). An incident takes place where the girl realises that she has been tricked. But when she confronts, our hero slaps her. And then chases her to India to apologise and win her over. Except when he eventually gets there, there are no apologies — just eye contact and a couple of songs — and of course, the girl loves him too.

In all this, you have fine actors like Rao Ramesh and Vennela Kishore who are absolutely wasted, and are hardly of any significance to the film. Tollywood filmmakers tend to go overboard while projecting a larger-than-life hero image to its lead actors. But in Saakshyam, Bellamkonda Sreenivas is not just a hero — he is referred to as Devudu and Paramathmudu — and the actor appears as clueless and unconvinced as we do while watching him on screen. Pooja Hegde gets to dance in a few songs and play the damsel in distress as goons chase after her, but is otherwise reduced to an inconsequential role.

Interestingly, a lot of time and money was invested in the film's CGI, which add zero value to this film. If mutilated hands, or a chase sequence involving a cow is their idea of using CGI to enhance the film visually, I'm afraid they've got it all wrong. For a film that keeps harping on about fate and destiny, the only thing on the minds of the audience while watching Saakshyam is to take control of their own destiny and head towards the exit door.