Ismart Shankar - Review

First things first. I love unapologetic mass movies as much as I love path breaking cinema. So Ismart Shankar promised to be that mass masala movie from the trailers.

Instead what we get is typical Puri flavor scenes right from Pokiri days and a good concept totally ruined by very uninteresting writing. Movie's writing only had focus on two areas, one is Ram's dialogues and two is eye candy shots on heroines. Rest of the movie lacks anything appealing from writing department.

Ram is a very fine actor and he once again proves he can carry off any role even if it is very haphazardly written like this one. He never comes across as hamming in this over the board characterization. There are so many morally wrong things about his character just like many Puri's heroes but I am not one for the argument if movies mimic society or society mimics movies. Nabha is shown in a glamorous role right from her intro and she suited the role. Nidhi's character is like a shadow of a person. If you do not focus enough, you might miss her in many scenes. Satya Dev is again wasted in a role that does not need a talent like him.

In his second innings I strongly feel that Mani Sharma is better than ever before. But the films he is choosing are letting him down. One thing that is constantly trying to keep this movie afloat is his BGM. The climax song and BGM are one of the best Telugu Cinema has seen in recent times.

During Badri, Bachi, Itlu Sravani Subramanyam we had Puri who had the burning desire to make different movies. Then Idiot happened that established the iconic Puri mark hero. Later on all his movies had stories around that hero's characterization. Then Pokiri happened. Any movie after Pokiri, Puri did not show any burning desire to be different, except may be Mehbooba. In Ismart he picks a very different story point for Telugu Cinema but kills it with his beaten to death scenes of police, mafia, hero shootings, chases etc. 

In one sentence, Ismart Shankar can be summed up as intro fight-intro song-heroine intro-another fight-sensuous song with heroine-another fight-another sensuous song-another fight-interval-another fight-another sensuous song-one more fight-one more sensuous song-one more fight-one more sensuous song and one last climax fight with kickass BGM from Mani Sharma and brilliant massy avatar of Ram. Watch it at your own risk.