Gam Gam Ganesha, the Telugu crime comedy written and directed by first-timer Uday Bommisetty, does not take itself seriously and hopes that the audience will give in to some easy laughs. The film has a good dose of humour — mostly silly and occasionally smart — but is also frustrating in equal measure. Despite the oddball characters and plot twists, it does not keep us invested. Anand Deverakonda and Emmanuel deliver a chunk of the fun lines and their buddy comedy is more interesting than the romance in the narrative.
The director doffs his hat to Pirates of the Caribbean and the older Westerns while he unravels this story in the surroundings of Kurnool and Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh. The opening sequence, amped up by Chaitan Bharadwaj’s riffs, plays out like a Western in a deserted location near Kurnool. Political rivalry is on display and with elections round the corner, there is a need for a high amount of liquid cash.
Gam Gam Ganesha (Telugu)
Meanwhile, small-time thieves Ganesh (Anand Deverakonda) and his friend (Emmanuel) rob kirana stores and make a few thousand. The friends do not aim high until Ganesh realises that love, too, comes at a price. While he wants to make quick money to win over his girlfriend Shruti (Pragati Srivastava), a conniving politician wants nothing less than ₹100 crore for the elections. Around the same time, an heir to a jeweller wants to rob his father’s store and pocket a diamond worth a princely sum.
Several oddball characters come to the fore. A prisoner out at the behest of a politician (Raj Arun) has to prove himself by pulling off a tough task, a village head wants to make quick money and so do a few others. Other characters who have nothing to do with the idol, money or the diamond are also thrown into the mix — for instance Vennela Kishore as ‘organ’ David, a strange doctor who prowls around people to rob them of their organs, and a drunk elderly man who claims he taught Chiranjeevi how to dance!
Ideally, the intersection of all these characters could have resulted in hilarious outcomes. Gam Gam… though, never builds up the tension or makes us root for any of the characters. Apart from a few fun segments, it is tough to be drawn into the drama.
Anand, sporting spiked hair and a tattoo (which becomes a running gag through the film) is at ease as the man who falls in and out of love. When he gets a raw deal in romance and sheds tears, albeit with comical overtones and mourns that this cannot be happening to him again, it elicits laughter in the theatre, thanks to the memories of his previous film, Baby. While Emmanuel and Vennela Kishore make their presence felt, others including Nayan Sarika and Satyam Rajesh have less scope to contribute.
Gam Gam Ganesha had the potential to be a crackling crime drama on the lines of Swamy Ra Ra, but delivers just a few forgettable laughs.
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