A rich blend of emotions
People experience frustration, anger, and pain at one point or the other in their lives. Some suppress them and some vent out in different ways but everyone gets a chance in their life time to find an outlet to spew them or express out meaningfully. Uma Maheswara Ugra Roopasya (UMUR) is the story of one such man who’s pent up feelings that are hidden inside him erupts finally to settle the scores after a series of incidents which leave him hurt and frustrated.
Mahesh (Satyadev Kancharana) is a photographer who runs a photo studio and leads a happy and comfortable life with his octogenarian father Manohar Rao (Raghavan), and a pet dog in the pristine Araku valley. Babji (V K Naresh) who is the bone-setter by profession is his soul mate and good camaraderie prevails between the two due to their like-mindedness.
Mahesh due to rush of blood involves in a fight and gets roughed up by Jognath (Ravindra Vijay) in front of people bearing the brunt of humiliation which starts burning inside him. He vows to take revenge for all the humiliation and pain he experienced and start making efforts to get himself physically and mentally fit as part of this game plan.
Adding insult to injury, break up with his childhood girlfriend Swati (Hari Chandana) make Mahesh more frustrated and as a blessing, in disguise, Jyothi (Roopa Koduvayur) enters his life unexpectedly giving his wounded heart some sort of solace.
As a part of his revenge, Mahesh goes one step further and gets trained in Kung Fu to get better equipped to win the final battle with much stronger Jognath who eventually learns the lesson of life through the hard way by underestimating the perseverance and determination of Mahesh.
Maha has created history with C/o Kancharapalem and the way he created characters out of nothing and made novices act and emote brilliantly before the camera and the subsequent result he achieved is something very remarkable. This was evident once again in UMUR as he makes the characters speak for themselves without building up of emotions or creating melodramatic scenes to elevate the characters. The versatility of Satyadev and the potential of Naresh has come in handy to Maha and he derived the best out of them which is illustrated in every frame.
Naresh is the show stealer and the way he keeps himself going by portraying different characters indicates his fondness and commitment towards films. Satyadev is growing by stature with every movie or web series he does, be it in the role of a psycho neurologist in a web series or a traumatic cop in a film, he proves that he can excel irrespective of the script or character. The character Mahesh played by him in UMUR is another step in his ladder of success which definitely will catapult him into a bigger league very soon provided he gets more selective in his future projects.
Hari Chandana as Swathi is passable in an underdeveloped character and Dr. Roopa Koduvayur as Jyothi is impressive and her dancing talent was very well utilized in the flash mob dance. She needs little bit of training in her diction and dialogue delivery to get moving in the film industry. But both look quite natural in deglamorized roles creating a new precedent for future heroines.
TNR as Nancharayya and Suhas as Korra Suhas has fared well with some good characterization along with Raghavan but one cannot escape the feeling that their characters have ended abruptly particularly the character of Nancharayya was left in the lurch without any justification.
As this is a remake of Malayalam super hit film Maheshinte Prathikaaram, the credit for the story should go to the original writer Syam Pushkaran. Maha has successfully adopted the story to suit our nativity aided by some soul touching music by Bijibal and the song ‘Ningi Chutte’ with meaningful lyrics by Vishwa and mellifluously sung by Vijay Yesudas along with super picturization gives fillip to the movie at the beginning itself. Equally engrossing is the Cinematography by Appu Prabhakar who has captured the lush green locales of Araku beautifully with his lens.
The only drawback is the presence of two love stories within a short span of time which should have been handled in a better way. These love tracks have diluted the main concept of the film a bit which should have been trimmed and shaped well and Maha should have improvised as far as these love tracks are concerned though it’s a deviation from the original story to add more authenticity to the plot.
Due to release on digital platform Netflix, the canvas of UMUR got displeasingly reduced thereby restricting its reach and the experience of watching it with more effective sound and projection system would have enhanced this film to another level which unfortunately has not happened and no doubt this would be very disappointing for viewers as well as for the makers.
Higher on technical values and brilliant from the performance point of view, UMUR is a definite watch to undergo an amazing soulful experience.
Rating: 3.5/5
