Yogi: Sentimental drivel

It appears as if the Telugu film industry is seriously lacking in good scripts. How else can one explain the umpteen fall back on safe bets like 'sister sentiment' and 'mother sentiment', that too borrowed from other languages?

V V Vinayak goes overboard in this weepy mother-son relationship resulting in a sentimental weep-fest which is very suffocating.

While Vinayak succeeded with the remake of the Tamil hit Ramana as Tagore, the same cannot be said of Yogi. However he manages to combine action and masala quite well to hold the attention of the viewers. But don't expect any cinematic class from this flick because it does not possess any.

The film tells of the love between Easwar Prasad (Prabhas) and his mother (Sharada), who live in a small village. Like most dutiful sons, Easwar wants to make his mother's life more comfortable and he does this by moving to Hyderabad to earn more money. However,our hero turns into a dreaded don overnight.

Meanwhile, the doting mother goes in search of her son, and as the forgetful son failed to mention his address, she keeps wandering around town. In the process, she bumps into Nayantara, a student of journalism, who allows the mother to stay in her apartment till she finds her son.

And the rest of the story is all about whether the mother and the son meet finally. In between there are fights, quite a few songs and an item number by Mumaith Khan thrown in, which incidentally, is a hit.

Prabhas fits the role of a don, while Nayantara looks pretty slim and quite charming. Venu Madhav and Sunil tickle the audience with their comedy. Ramana Gogula's music is okay.

Though this film is a remake of the Kannda top grosser Jogi, it appears as if the Kannada producers helped themselves to generous footage from the Telugu flick Chatrapati because both these films revolve around mother-son relationship. Besides, they appear razor sharp as the film moves from one frame to another. And, to top it all the protagonist in both the films is Prabhas!

When the director says, 'the feel never ends,' he was probably right. This is a ridiculously sentimental flick not worth wasting money at all.

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