Budhivanta

Budhivanta
Directed by	Ramnath Rigvedhi
Produced by	SV Rajendra Singh Babu A Mohan
Starring	Upendra Pooja Gandhi Natanya Singh Brindha Parekh Suman Ranganath Saloni Aswani
Music by	Vijay Antony
Release dates	26 September 2008
Country	India
Language	Kannada
Budget	40 million (US$640,000)
Box office	150 million (US$2.4 million)[1]

Budhivanta (translation: Intelligent) (also known as Buddhimanthudu in Telugu) is a 2008 Kannada language film starring Upendra in the lead role. It was directed by Ramnath Rigvedhi. It is a remake of the Tamil film Naan Avanillai.^[2] It was released on 26 September 2008.^[3] The film was supposed to be released on Upendra's birthday, 18 September 2008, but because of the delay in censor certification, the release date got postponed to 26 September 2008. It became the highest grossing Kannada film of 2008 and turned out to be a much bigger hit than the original Naan Avanillai. Upendra's performance in 7 different roles and his dilogue delivery was praised by the critics and the audience.^[4]

Plot

The film begins with three separate teams accusing the same man of marrying one among them and making off with all their wealth. The police term it the Manmatha Raja case, and it receives wide media coverage. A man's likeness is also broadcast. Upon seeing that, two more girls realise that they have also been cheated by the same man, but are unwilling to believe it. On a separate track, Panchamruta aka Panche (Upendra) is travelling in a bus. The bus meets with an accident and Panche is admitted to the hospital. A policeman ties Panche's face to that of the accused in the Manmatha Raja case and Panche is arrested. Panche's case receives widespread attention, and it finally comes before the judge (Lakshmi). The judge's daughter Pooja (Pooja Gandhi), a law student who's one of the girls cheated by Manmatha, obtains permission to watch the proceedings.

The judge or judge-amma as Panche begins to call her, begins the proceedings by offering a court appointed lawyer for Panche's defence. Panche refuses, and says he will represent himself. The first witness in court is Rekha Vijay Mittal (Brinda). She recounts, she found a mobile at a parking lot which turns out to belong to Vijay Mittal (Upendra). Vijay talks to her in English, and asks her to hang on to the mobile, as he's flying to London. Rekha, impressed by him and his wealth, agrees. Vijay comes to Bangalore, and meets Rekha and her brother. Her brother is in the construction business and wants Vijay to help him move things with a strict politician. Vijay says that the politician expects 2.5 million in bribes in a briefcase and call it a file. They do so, and the politician who is unaware of the existence of the bribe money, takes it. Rekha wants to marry Vijay, but according to his friend Johnny Walker (Chidanand), he has prior commitments to marry an Englishwoman. Vijay however agrees to a quick wedding, and they get married. Vijay doesn't let them get photographed either. The next day, Vijay has run away from the house taking all the valuables with him. The money they had given to the politician is also gone, as Vijay has changed briefcases soon after. Rekha now says that Panche is Vijay Mittal. Panche argues that she has no proof at all that a wedding happened. He also suggests that the judge jails Rekha's brother on bribery charges as they have publicly accepted it.

The public prosecutor has no choice but to accept Panche's arguments. In the mean time, Pooja is quite impressed with the arguments of Panche. She tells him so when he is being taken away, and she tells him that she knows that he is not Panche but Zakir Hussain (Upendra), who cheated her out of a painting she paid one lakh for. Panche disagrees strongly. The next witness is the Telugu girl Shanti/Telugu Pilla/Bangaru (Saloni). Shanti is obsessed with films, and she in uninterested in the man she is engaged to marry as he isn't heroic enough. She once meets a man wearing the Krissh face mask, and riding a bike on a single tyre. She is impressed with his heroism. He tells her his name is Khush (Upendra) and he gives her his mobile so she can contact him. Johnny Walker calls her instead, and lets her know that he's really Samarasimha Reddy, hailing from a Rayala Seema royal family and in filmy style has got rid of all his enemies. This impresses her further and she runs away with him with all her valuables. He builds a shack for them in Dil style, and marries her by exchanging flower garlands. Just when they're about to have their nuptials, he makes off with all the gold she's brought with her. In a fit of anger, Shanti has thrown away the mangalasutra he tied her. Now she accuses that Samarasimha Reddy is in fact Panche. Panche says he is not, and says that even this girl has no proof to accuse him and that the story itself was like a combination of four films. Shanti is extremely irritated, but she has no choice but to step down.

In the meantime, a man named David Fernandes Shridhar claims that Panche is really his brother Joseph (Upendra). David had a failed marriage, and his wife, who is frustrated with David's poverty leaves with another man. Deeply affected by that Joseph takes to crime and unjust behaviour, and substantiates all his doings with unarguable logic. And one day, David gets irritated enough with Joseph that he throws him out of the house. Panche listens to all this and disagrees. He says he was born and brought up a Hindu, and also says that he is from Mangalore. The police find that the story he has told them about his mother is true. A DNA test between David and Panche comes back negative. The fourth witness is Radha Bai (Hema Chaudhry) who claims that Panche deceived them in the guise of Shri Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh (Upendra). He calls himself an incarnation of Lord Krishna, and has come to the ashram of Radha Bai to marry Rani (Netanya), her daughter and take her to heaven. Under the influence of the drugs he has fed them in the name of theertha, both Radha bai and Rani happily agree. He plies them with enough ramarasa for them to lose senses, and makes off with all their money. Panche ridicules them for their foolishness and also makes fun of the fact that Rani wanted to get married to a god. The public prosecutor has no counter-arguments here either. In the meantime, the police find Johnny Walker. Johnny says that he was bribed by a man like Panche to call all the women in question, but he is unable to convincingly tell them that Panche was indeed the man.

The last witness is the industrialist Monica (Suman Ranganath), who says she had a secretary called Shyam Prasad (Upendra), who helped her realise that she was missing something without a marriage. She was a divorcee, divorced from her husband because she was a self-satisfied woman. She falls for Shyam and even announces their wedding, but Shyam walks away. She talks for Panche, and says he shouldn't be jailed. The judge listens to all these arguments and says that she has nothing on Panche, so he is free to go. Panche leaves, and men with the likeness of Shyam, Samarasimha, Rajneesh, Vijay who're present in the crowd also leave and everyone follows them. But, it turns out that these are all different men, all related to the girls, wearing wigs. And Panche is really David's brother Joseph who has been playacting with the girls to make them realise their mistakes and accept the men (the fake four) who love them. He explains that after he left David's house, he found that his sister in law committed suicide. He then decides to help these women by making them realise that their greed for different things is foolish. Along with the end credits, we are shown how Panche/Joseph falsified various evidences like the DNA sample.^[5]

Cast

• Upendra as Panchamrutha/Joseph Fernandez/Zakir Hussain/Vijay Mittal/Samarasimha Reddy/Sri Sri Sri Bhagavan Ranjaneesh Swamy/Shyam Prasad
• Pooja Gandhias Pooja, a law student
• Brinda Parekh as Rekha Mithal
• Saloni Aswanias Shanthi (Bangaaru)
• Natanya Singh as Rani (Radhe)
• Suman Ranganath as Monika, an industrialist
• Lakshmi as Judge, mother of Pooja
• Sridhar as David Fernandez, brother of Joseph Fernandez
• Dharma as Rekha's brother
• Chidanand as Johnny Walker
• Bank Janardhan as Police constable
• Hema Chowdhary as Chandrabhai, Rani's mother

Box office

Karnataka

Budhivanta had a fantastic opening across Karnataka by breaking many opening box office records. The film stormed the box office throughout its theatrical run and went on to become the highest grossing Kannada film of 2008,^[6] by collecting more than 150 million at the box office.^[1] It completed 100 days screening in more than 25 centres all over Karnataka.^[7] The film turned out to be a much bigger hit than the original Naan Avanillai.

Andhra Pradesh

The Telugu version of the film was released as Budhimanthudu in Andhra Pradesh. It completed 50 days of run and did decent business at the box office across Andhra Pradesh.

Music

The Soundtrack of Budhivantha got an amazing response upon its audio release and turned out to be one of the best selling albums of the year. The official soundtrack contains seven songs composed by Vijay Antony with the lyrics primarily penned by Kaviraj and Upendra. The audio of the film was released on 18 June 2008, three months before the release of the film. The album was released by Times Music.^[4]

References

External links

• Official site