Women doing mainstream kickass action and beating the hell out of villains seems to be the in thing in South Indian films these days. After the Tamil film Blast, this Telugu film, Maa Inti Bangaaram (MIB), has a similar theme. While in Blast, this theme was interwoven into a smartly written screenplay, in MIB, the script harks back to the time-tested but oft-repeated Baasha template. The result is a long, middling, dreary film that fails to impress, unlike Blast.
The film is set in the landline era of black dial phones, somewhere in interior Andhra Pradesh. The writers introduce the Naxal movement and offer a fleeting glimpse into how common folks get indoctrinated. The film’s central character is Swarna, played by Samantha. The screenplay, written by Raj Nidimoru, Vasanth Maringati, and Prahas Boppudi, seems to focus only on elevating Samantha’s character. She and her husband, Nidimoru, are also among the producers. We all know what happens when a film is scripted mainly to elevate a star’s status, as we often see with the Superstar (Rajini) and the Lady Superstar (Nayanthara). The screenplay and other characters fall by the wayside, resulting in badly scripted star vehicles. That’s what has happened here.
The title Maa Inti Bangaaram in Telugu means ‘our house’s gold’. Her character is aptly named Swarna. She has a past she tries to leave behind and move on from. In film scripts, that’s almost a no-no. The past comes to haunt, obviously, in the form of a devious villain or villains. At the end, she fights and gets over the past. She becomes the Gold of the house. This is no spoiler. This formula is visible right from the first frame of the film! The screenplay is as predictable and dated as this.
To be fair to Samantha, she puts her heart and soul into the film. She is extremely fit and displays the agility required for tough action sequences. But the writers fail to leverage her screen presence. Even the Baasha-type reveal plays out as a damp squib. There are a host of other actors, like Gauthami and Anand (whom I last saw in Mani Ratnam’s Thiruda Thiruda as one of the main protagonists), in the cast. But with the film focused just on Samantha, their characters or performances fail to register. The film’s comedy treatment seems stuck in the Maya Bazaar era. Gulshan Deviah, who normally commands a strong screen presence, is reduced to a poor caricature.
Maa Inti Bangaaram is streaming now on Jio Hotstar.
My Flash Verdict: Very Average.
AnandKumarRSonFilms 
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