Saptagiri LLB – Movie Review

What’s it about!
A small-time lawyer Saptagiri (Saptagiri) has dreams of becoming a big advocate. When he moves to Hyderabad, he gets a chance to take up a high-profile case. To win this case, he has to compete with top-most criminal lawyer Rajpal (Sai Kumar) who is defending a rich youngster Rohith who is accused of drunken driving causing the death of six people. He gets setbacks initially but he soon starts finding his strength. How he gathers evidence and how he turns a real hero forms the rest of the movie.
 
Analysis
‘Saptagiri LLB’ is remake of director Subhash Kapoor’s Bollywood hit ‘Jolly LLB’. Subhash Kapoor’s ‘Jolly LLB’ was a critique of the system that favours rich, makes the lives of the poor difficult. Subhash Kapoor packaged the movie with lot of funny scenes and never missed the undercurrent satire. This Telugu version has also followed the same plotline but it has missed the soul and fun. It has turned out to be a messy and shoddy remake.
 
The writer and directors have included some comedy scenes but they are quite clichéd and humourless. Till the interval, we don’t know which direction the film is heading as boring sequences continue. Since the film’s basic story is solid and the final episode has come out well in this Telugu version too.
 
Major issue of the movie is the direction. All scenes are treated like stitching patches to a cloth than stitching a proper dress. There is no smooth flow of the narration or no heightened drama. Luckily, Sai Kumar as criminal lawyer and Siva Prasad as judge with their performances have tried their best to make this watchable. Saptagiri is out of form as far as comedy is concerned but he has done fairly decent job in the final court drama.
 
The original movie is filled with genuine LOL sequences as well as riveting court episodes with terrific performances from Boman Irani and Saurabh Shukla (he won National Award too). Though Both Sai Kumar and Siva Prasad have given their best shot, we don’t involve much like the original movie has made. Don’t know why Saptagiri has indulged in fights and dances in a film that doesn’t require him to act like a mass hero. Moreover, his dance steps and dresses he wore are gaudy.
 
As far as technical values are concerned, the making values and camera work is substandard. Music is pretty bad too.
 
New director has failed to translate the original content’s inherent better moments on to the Telugu version.

Bottom–line: ‘Saptagiri LLB’ is a shoddy remake of the original Bollywood flick ‘Jolly LLB’. Barring the final twenty minutes (court room episode), it is marred by bad direction.