Now Premiering - Ek Mini Katha

 Ek Mini Katha – Wins a guffaw or two but shatters only a stigma or two.

Ek Mini Katha, premiering on Amazon Prime Video, is superficially a psychologically shattering unshy movie with comedy en route. As you unzip, you’ll find maturity levels of the makers are smaller than the problematic dick of our hero. The movie juxtaposes itself next to Vicky Donor and Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan but is Shudhh Desi Romance crossed over with icky jokes of Allari. 

The movie had too many size issues, which got abstractly layered in my imagination. The size of the movie’s projection aspect ratio is squarish and closer to 16:9, which fills my laptop screen. For a moment, I thought it’s an adult English sitcom, which has come to provide me with some laughs. I never started taking the film seriously, thinking it’s a lavish yesteryear TV show. It’s the issue of a Larger, immersive aspect ratio with minimally evoked subconscious seriousness.

Hitherto the head-on tackling of the main subject, the movie spends 5 mins to unzip the first comedic set-piece, where profanity in language, like in a posed 18+ film, takes a sidetrack as hero’s father openly utters the words, Sex Addict, Prostitute, Blu Films… This is to loudly state that this is a film where a character wouldn’t think twice to shout PES and the very next second, the scene would bend down to us and say – Just for laughs: Dicks! . It’s the issue of large swearing and minimal sense.

Writer – Merlapaka Gandhi creates conversations and characters out of a nostalgic hit on Maruthi and Srinu Vaitla’s slapstick comedy. Replace the trait - memory loss in Bhale Bhale Magadivoy with erectile dysfunction, add the shining comedians of the from Anil Ravipudi’s (another Vaitla-Maruthi nostalgically hit filmmaker) F2, it’s enough to fill the entire runtime of Ek Mini Katha, leaving exactly the last 10 mins.

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The jokes are aggressive, violent, radical and at points stupid. They sure win a guffaw or two but shatter only a stigma or two. The structural similarity of the scenes involving a joke is similar to the recent Jathirathnalu, but what keeps that movie on a respectable pedestal is the involvement and integrity of characters introduced, as they were never outlandish to the dry-witted universe it was living in. Here, the characters are for comedy, only for comedy, and arrive just in time to throw a gag – no matter in which galaxy, how much ever far away it might be. The issue of a large chunk of the movie radical comedy and small sex ed ending for a formality.  

Santhosh Shobhan as a petrified youngster is a mismatched chocolate boy. He is, as stated before, exactly envisioned like Nani’s Lucky in Bhale Bhale Magadivoy and not Ayshman Khurana from Vicky Donor. It’s like cravingly entering a Supermarket for Cadbury Fruit’n Nut – full of joyful chocolate and the crackling bite for the guilty pleasures and only getting a 20 rupee, blobby 5 star which is more caramelly and painstakingly sticky for the jaws as we chew.

The lines – “ Matladataniki, Manasulo ninchi cheppataniki theda untundi kadandi” perfectly sums up Santhosh Shobhan deliverance. He is never saying the philosophy from Manasu. It’s the issue of wrong flavour, wrong crackling feel and ultimately the wrong size of a seasoned chocolate boy for humour and emotion. The same goes with the other serious character – the heroine, wrongly cast for Kavya Thapar.

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Music Director Pravin Lakkaraju also is on a nostalgic hit on S.S.Thaman’s heavily orchestrated and chorused, drenching background score. Here the nostalgia is so strong that by mistake, they sound the same. Songs are the least to talk about as they are composed and choreographed to make us nostalgically hit on dance numbers from Chithralahari ( I hate my lifeuu aka Parugu Parugu), SVSC ( Ee Mayalo.. aka Inka Cheppale Inka )and Bhale Bhale Magadivoy (Saamiranga aka How a’How).

The issue of our restraint to healthily and publicly (if not at least in our living room) talk about sex and sex organs comes at the end. The issue of the hero having a small dick isn’t an issue at all (spoiler alert!!). The latter issue is for Fun and the former for clearing taboos. The movie largely fails in accomplishing a small part of both.