Sriman Narayana (Balakrishna) is a college lecturer and is the saviour for all those around him. Once he gets to know of any kind of injustice happening around him, he reaches the trouble spot, and breaks the bones of the goons who end up in hospital to be treated by astonished doctors (who rave about the qualities of the man who keeps giving them regular customers!).
As usual, all this gets on the villain’s nerves especially with Sriman Narayana protecting his love interest (Sneha Ullal). A few reels down the memory lane, it is revealed that villain’s dad is the arch rival of Sriman Narayana‘s dad Simha (Balakrishna again) who single handedly protects the whole village. He, in fact, thrashes the goons so badly that their leader ends up being in coma for 30 years.
Amazingly Simha manages to do this after being repeatedly stabbed by the goons. However, Simha and his wife (Nayanatara) are killed in the fight. His son Sriman Narayana is brought up by his grand mom (K.R. Vijaya) and once she reveals the past to him, he takes revenge and the movie comes to an end.
Balakrishna gives a restrained performance by his usual standards. He excels in the title role of Simha. Sneha Ullal is ordinary as the student who falls in love with her lecturer. Nayantara looks convincing in a short role. Namitha caters to the front benchers in the role of a professor who keeps fantasising about Balakrishna.
The comedy in the first half by Venu Madhav and Krishna Bhagawan is good. Music by Chakri is average with the title track Simha and the flashback track Bangaaru Konda being the pick of the lot. Balakrishna’s dialogues are powerful and effective. For a change, his lines are restrained and not over the top.
There have been several movies in the past with a similar revenge theme and Simha is no different. The movie has lots of violence and too much of bloodshed, most of it inflicted by the hero. We, Telugu audience, have accepted the fact the protagonist can effortlessly thrash at least 10–12 goons at a time with ease.
Added to this in the last few years, we have also become used to the protagonist breaking the goon’s bones (where the bones are literally shown to break through the X-ray film) and rendering them useless for days ( or years as in this movie) to follow.
We are OK with Shakela doing a physical instructor role, so there is no reason why an extra obese Namitha can’t do a Professor’s role whose only job is to run around the hero. Let us not even talk about our good old heroes romancing young girls half their age. Does all this seem funny? Sadly this has become the norm now.
Overall, director Boyapati Srinu’s Simha is the regular fare that is being dished out since ages. Watch it if you are Balakrishna fan for he has given a controlled performance. Similar movies have gone on to become hits and it remains to be seen if Simha takes the same route.
Critic: Raghu Chaitanya
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