Indumathi is a Telugu film, starring Sivaji, Shweta Bharadwaj and others, directed by Harsha Reddy. Produced by Harsha Reddy, and music composed by Anand. This film Released on January 1, 2009.
A girl (Shweta Bharadwaj) steals a couple of crores from her boss in Vizag and runs away with her boyfriend to Hyderabad. There she rents Ananda Nilayam in Gachibowli. She goes missing and her boyfriend is killed. A group of friends (Vennela Kishore, Vijay Sai and Satyam Rajesh) rent out the same place the next day. And they are visited by a psychopath (Sivaji) the next day. The rest of the story is all about who the psychopath is and what happens to the girl and the friends’ gang.
Artists Performance
Sivaji did the role of psychopath and he excels with good antics. His dialogues told in Telangana slang are entertaining. Vennela Kishore (Khadir from Vennela) impresses again in this film. His own dubbing (dubbing for Vennela was done by Uttej) in this film is good. He has got good comedy timing. He has the ability to do serious roles as well. Vijay Sai is another guy who seems to have become a definite actor in thriller films. His comedy is pretty good. Shweta Bharadwaj fits the bill and she did a hot scene in this film. But the real hero of the film is Harsha Vardhan (Amrutam fame). His body language in this film is pretty close to that of Vince Vaughn who played Norman Bates character in Psycho (1998). Harsha (TV9 crime watch guy) did the role of private detective. Srinivasa Reddy did a small role and he provides comedy.
Technical departments
Story: Story of the film is inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Psycho (1960). The character of Sivaji is added to mislead the audiences and at the same time to provide the entertainment. At the same time, heroine character is not killed to show her as one of the suspects. The investigator character in Psycho is split into two characters in the film. Since it is taboo to show mother in a bad way in Telugu films, the director added a brother character to create a new premise for the death of psycho’s family members.
Screenplay – direction
Screenplay of the film is little confusing. The original film Psycho is told in a linear format with the vital twist in the climax. For Indumathi, the director narrated it with a flashback format with time stamp. For a first timer, Harsha P Reddy does a decent job. He succeeded in creating humor and suspense element. But he did not narrate the story in a clear way. Though completely irrelevant to the story, he managed to hold most of the second half with the single episode of Sivaji portraying as a psychopath. But, he should have avoided a couple of bad scenes like gay comedy at the beginning and prostitute episode.
Other departments
The only song in the film is good. The background score by Anand (Mantra fame) is worth commending. Cinematography of the film is neat. Some of the dialogues are nice (especially Telangana Vastunda – Vizag sim ki roaming padutunda dialogue). The producer has taken lot of care in the postproduction and it shows up on the screen.
Last Word
Indumathi is a kind of film that is made with the purpose of entertainment by leaving the basic plot aside. Hence if you look for entertainment, Indumathi might satisfy you. If you look from a critic’s point of view, you will get disturbed because the plot is diluted to create entertainment. You will get slightly disappointed with ‘Indumathi’ if you had already seen ‘psycho’ (1960). There could be some entertainment value for the others.
