STORY
Sujata is a single mother and her son Venky was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) as a child. Sick of his condition and feeling a burden on his mother for carrying him his whole life, he decides to euthanize to facilitate organ donation.
INTRODUCTION
Salaam Venky is based on the true story of Kolavennu Venkatesh who suffered from DMD and passed away in 2004 when he was 25. He was a film buff and a chess player. To depict the right story on the camera, the film based its source from a book ‘The Last Hurrah’ by Shrikant Murthy.
REVIEW
A film directed by Revathi. An impressive and talented cast led by Kajol and Vishal Jethwa. Mithoon‘s music and a film that is not only based on a true story but even based on a book. What can go wrong? Execution!!
If you want to waste a film that has a potential story, learn the art from director Revathi. It is a simple story as described above and is stretched to 136 minutes. The biggest drawback of the film is the boring melodramatic first half that led to nowhere at all. Nothing was developing from the given scenario. The screen time was constantly running on slicing Venky’s relation with people close to him and his frustrated mother not agreeing on his wish. Again, that took the entire first half.
The film literally begun to talk in the second half. The new characters were immediately introduced. The screenplay eventually approached movement and got pacy. And I felt if Revathi regretted the first half and desperately made changes just like a football coach.
Then the news media portrayal looked so artificial. There was no hard way of journalism to squeeze the debate of euthanizing. And a very off courtroom drama. As much as the plea to euthanize made rounds 20 years ago, there wasn’t much spark to offer.
Such an intense sequence of Venky’s father Karunesh was shot for hardly three minutes. This character and the legal proceedings could have easily covered a lot of screen time in the first half if the film could have shortened its length for being melodramatic. Salaam Venky, for me, was around 40 minutes long.
Kajol had nothing particular to offer, we have observed her with such performance before. It is Vishal Jethwa whose body language and facial translation for diagnosis were impressive. Aamir Khan as the ghost character stood enclosed only for Sujata. Who was he? It was cleared in the first meeting with Sujata. But with Karunesh showing disapproval in the flashback gave the viewers a precise theory. My understanding is that Aamir’s character and Sujata had an affair, unsure if Sujata was married to Karunesh. But Aamir is Venky’s father and Karunesh got to know that and quitted on them.
CLOSING REMARKS
Salaam Venky fails to execute a potential story that lacks writing and leans on more melodrama.
RATING 3.5/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 