Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki is the third Gautam Karthik film I’ve seen to review, this year. And it seems like – based on limited sample – that the actor has gotten slightly better over the months.
In Muthuramalingam, he was about as loose and ineffectual as the plot and the story; in Rangoon, he made efforts to improve but was let down by the bad, pancake heavy make-up. Here, in Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki, he is completely at ease, sharing bad jokes with the whole team and having fun at it.
Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki is also the third Nikki Galrani film I’ve seen this year – the other two being Motta Siva Ketta Siva and Maragadha Nanayam. Based again on limited sample, clearly, funny films are her forte.
*****
Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki is written and directed by Santhosh P Jayakumar, and produced by Thangaraj of Thangam Cinemas, with Studio Green distributing it. The film stars Gautham Karthik, Nikki Galrani, Sathish, Rajendran, Karunakaran, and others.
The film features completely uninteresting and eminently forgettable music by Balamurali Balu.
*****
In Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki, Hari (played by Gautham Karthik) is the owner of a funeral services company, and Ramya (Nikki Galrani) is a college student who falls in and out of love with Hari. They decide to return the gifts they gave each other on their breakup, and so, plan to meet at a resort.
Meanwhile, a politician (Ravi Mariya) hires a couple of goons (Rajendran and Karunakaran) to detonate a bomb at a public meeting he will attend, and thus claim that his political rivals are set on killing him.
Also, a young man is hired by a counterfeiter to pass off fake 2000 rupee notes into circulation and exchange it for genuine currency.
However, all three unknowingly use identical bags to carry their “stuff” in. So, you know where the film is going to go eventually. Bag A, Bag B, Bag C, and Bags D through Z, will all get mixed up.
In the middle of these zany schemes, we learn how Hari and Ramya met, which involves nudity and a rehash of the Rajinikanth-Kushbu scene from Annamalai.
Meanwhile, there is also a child who is kidnapped and their parents ransomed. And therefore, a policeman – RK Suresh – who will have to rescue the child.
All these happen at a resort called Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki – thus justifying the film’s title.
*****
Perhaps to truly appreciate (or understand) the film’s crude sense of humour, one must know of a certain Whatsapp Swamiji. This was my introduction to the character. Apparently a popular presence, this Whatsapp Swamiji’s messages are laced with sexual innuendo, and sexist, misogynist drivel glorifying men.
Which means that at least 90 percent of his audience – and thus this film’s – are young men.
Which was true of Screen 2 at Gopalan Grand Mall in Bangalore. There were a few women in the crowd, but the loudest laughs and the most enthusiastic cheers came from the ‘men’.
*****
A classic Zany Scheme – best exemplified by PG Wodehouse books, and most of Crazy Mohan’s plots – requires a mix-up and one person to extricate the mixed-up people and objects. In Plum’s books, it is usually the amazing Jeeves, or Sir Galahad Threepwood. In Crazy Mohan’s plays and plots, it is usually the hero (Maadhu Balaji, or Kamal Haasan, respectively) who sorts out the mix-up.
In Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki, the mix-up is never really resolved, and Hari gets his bag back almost entirely accidentally.
And similarly, the young girl is accidentally discovered by Ramya, and is safely restored to her parents.
*****
Recommended
There are a lot of funny moments in the film. But for most part, the humour is extremely crude. And homophobic, bigoted. But it is hard not to laugh with the rest of the theatre because laughter is contagious, and the humour in the film plays on your deeply conditioned impulse to think of sex, and women, as funny or weak. You laugh, and you cringe and blame yourself. And you judge the rest of the men-children in the cinema. Therefore, the rare gag that does not belittle, does not play on adult tropes, is much funnier in comparison.
*****
The Hara Hara Mahadeva Ki review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.