'Mazaka' Movie Review: Sundeep's Well-Intended Comedy Drama Undone by Inorganic Writing

Director: Trinadha Rao Nakkina
Writers: Prasanna Kumar and Sai Krishna
Cast: Sundeep Kishan, Rao Ramesh, Ritu Varma, Anshu, Murali Sharma, Ajay, Hyper Aadi
Language: Telugu

Those familiar with filmmaker Trinadha Rao Nakkina’s defiantly “old-school” brand of romantic comedy would be well aware that his films are rife with contrivances and twists in equal measure.

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In his latest outing Mazaka, a father-son duo goes about finding love and transforming their all-male household into a home with the presence of women. Venkata Ramana (Rao Ramesh), the father, is convinced that his son Krishna (Sundeep Kishan) can get married only if the former remarries; Krishna, in turn, cannot help but wear his heart on his sleeve for a very reluctant Meera (Ritu Varma). While the old man finds love in the unlikeliest manner and the son manages to win over Meera eventually, their journey of securing that place in the sun is obstructed when the mandatory plot twist crops up: the two women in this case hate the sight of one another.

This leads to a whole new wave of ploying and maneuvering that reminds us of the staple Telugu romcom genre that has nearly waned out of existence, wherein stretched-out gags and silly antics take over the narrative without any qualms. At one point, the Telugu viewer would have gladly accepted this approach for the lack of a better choice, but Mazaka feels undone by it. It’s an effort in which the comedy seems to run a course of its own while the emotions play out haphazardly, with both tropes never really converging to give us the wholesome entertainer it ought to be.

The biggest impediment here is that one never really gets to understand the conundrums of the father and son. Writers Prasanna Kumar and Sai Krishna’s script often declares that the lives of the two men are devoid of the intimacy and perspective that only a woman could bring about, but the scenes that play out in between seldom evoke this vacuous feeling in them.

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Instead, we get a barrage of sequences underscored with comedy that ultimately feels run-of-the-mill because of their loud, overwrought nature. Another crucial concern with Mazaka is that the humour is never organic, as in other landmark Telugu romcoms like Ashta Chamma (2008) and Ante Sundaraniki! (2022) (both featuring Nani, interestingly). In both these films, it is the keenly-constructed narrative against a well-defined setting that dispenses the humour, even though the approach is over-the-top in its own right.

Mazaka, on the other hand, doesn’t involve itself in creating a world where the characters are recognisable. So when the jokes arrive in blitzkrieg fashion, a majority of them appear laboured and desperate.

The writing does boast of some intent, which reveals itself in a couple of strong scenes in the second half (the one featuring Venkata Ramana and Meera, his would-be daughter-in-law is particularly impressive) but those moments are too few and far between. In the said scene, Ritu Varma, who is uncharacteristically relegated to being the “heroine” in the rest of the film, shares a great camaraderie with her senior co-star Rao Ramesh, who himself relishes the rare opportunity of underplaying his character.

Rao Ramesh isn’t unimpressive in the role of the bumbling Venkata Ramana, but his performance seems pitched to a meter that doesn’t always deliver good results. He also needed a better romance track (just as Sundeep Kishan did) which should have opted for a bit more subtlety and tenderness, and fewer comedy routines overcooked by the background score. Music composer Leon James’ work, in that regard, is underwhelming.

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Mazaka is more of a missed opportunity than a bad attempt; the film has a strong central conflict that is fit for both humour and emotional resonance, but somehow the two aspects never come together. The actors, too, share good synergy throughout (Murali Sharma and Anshu of Manmathudu fame play important roles, albeit without much challenge) and there are fleeting promises of an engaging family-comedy.

Yet, the dated method—from slightly questionable gender stereotypes to how a form of stalking is made acceptable—works against the film because one opines that society, at large, has moved on from the cadence of the generation-ago. Even if you are willing to see past these aspects, the film doesn't fully work because of the inconsistent and inattentive writing.