What’s it about?
Gaali Sampath (Rajendra Prasad) had lost his voice in an accident, in which his wife was also killed. He lives in Araku with his doting son Soori (Sree Vishnu) who also suffers from a respiratory problem. His son is dreaming of owning a transport van and run the business. To help his son financially, Gaali Sampath decides to participate in a stage-play contest so that he can win prize money. This leads to some incidents that cause misunderstandings between the father and the son.
Adding more problems, Gaali Sampath also falls in an uncovered deep well.
Analysis
‘Gaali Sampath’, which has a screenplay, dialogues, and direction-supervision by Anil Ravipudi, begins in an unpretentious way, much like a Malayalam movie, depicting the lifestyle of the two protagonists. There are no flashy sequences. The initial moments focus on Gaali Sampath’s speech problems and his fascination for acting in stage plays, and his son’s love story with the local sarpanch’s daughter.
The film takes its own sweet time to set the conflict point. However, it doesn’t take much time to realize that it has old-school narration.
A mute person falling in a well is the main point of this story. The second hour of the story focuses on the aspect of how Gaali Sampath survives. This should have been a riveting watch. But the director fails.
The emotional core of the final moments is effective but the preceding proceedings are poorly handled. The beginning sequences which are meant to evoke laughter have failed big time. The writing here is bad. The less said about the direction and narration is the better.
The romantic track between Sree Vishnu and Lovely Singh and the comedy thread between Srikanth Aiyyangar and Anish Kuruvilla are proof to say how lame the writing is.
The saving grace is the performances of Rajendra Prasad and Sree Vishnu.
Rajendra Prasad dominates the show right from the beginning. The veteran actor’s mime acting in the first half and the performance in the final moments stay with us. But his comedy dialogues like ‘fifa fafa..” are irritating after a point. Sree Vishnu has played the role of a son but we can say it is kind of a guest character. He doesn’t get much runtime in the second half. However, Vishnu has given his best and puts in a strong effort to portray this role.
Satya serves as the translator for Rajendra Prasad’s mute dialogues. Actress Lovely Singh, Raghu Babu, and Tanikella are okay.
Music by Achu Rajamani doesn’t make much impact. The cinematography is decent. The film’s writing credits are shared by Sai Krishna, Anil Ravipudi, and Mirchi Kiran. Strangely writing is the weakest aspect of this film.
Bottom line: In ‘Gaali Sampath’, Rajendra Prasad’s strong performance and Sree Vishnu’s acting are the only better parts. Lame writing and old-school narration have diluted the emotional angle of the film.
By: Jalapathy Gudelli
Rating: 2.5/5
Film: Gaali Sampath
Cast: Sree Vishnu, Rajendra Prasad, Lovely Singh, Sathya, Tanikella
Music: Achu Rajamani
Cinematography: Sai Sriram
Editor: Tammiraju
Producer: Sahu Garapati, Harish Peddi, S Krishna
Story: S Krishna
Screenplay: Anil Ravipudi
Directed by: Anish
Release Date: March 11, 2021
