Boss Kannada

Starring: Darshan, Shivaji Prabhu, Navya Nair, Rekha, Sumithra, Rangayana Raghu, Bullet Prakash, Supreeth Reddy,
Umasri, Suresh Chandra
Director: Raghuraj
Producer: Ramesh Yadav
Music Dir: V. Harikrishna
Lyricist: Dr. V. Nagendra Prasad, Kaviraj
Singers: Rajesh Krishnan, Nanditha, Shamita Malnad, Shankar Mahadevan, Udit Narayan, Megha
Distributor: Sri Ganesh
Genre: Action, Romance, Thriller

Synopsis
The film starts with Raj (Darshan) capturing a notorious criminal and murderer (Supreeth Reddy), who is in cahoots with the police and with politicians, and for whom there is a reward of Rs. 1 lakh. Raj brings the reward money to the mother of the man that had been murdered by the criminal, saying that it will not bring her son back, but that he will be like a son to her instead. Everyone rejoices, and says the credit is due to Laxmi.
Ram (Darshan) is a big businessman. He is angry because the story of the capture of the criminal by Raj is front-page news, and he loses an important contract as a result of his brother?s notoriety.
Ram and Raj are twin children of a businessman. Raj was the younger, and was healthy, but Ram, the elder twin was weak at birth and had to be kept in hospital under observation for a month. Their mother fed Ram, but she did not have enough milk to feed Raj, so she got her maidservant, Laxmi (Umasri), who also had a child at that time, to feed Raj. Ram grew up to be calm and intelligent, Raj to be wild and brave. Both boys were bright students at school, but Ram was more interested in intellectual pursuits, and only mixed with the children of rich families, whereas Raj was more interested in sports, and was happiest with the children of poor families. The father blamed Raj?s behaviour on the fact that he was fed milk by the maidservant at his birth, believing that had led him to imbibe the qualities of slum boys. Eventually his father threw him out of the house. After his father?s death, Ram ran the Construction Company, winning contracts by paying bribes. His personal secretary, Sona (Rekha), helps run the business and looks after his personal needs. She is in love with him.
Comedy is provided by Nandu (Rangayana Raghu), who works for the company, trying to get a girl, Saniya Sarasu, to lose weight by taking all sorts of different exercise.
Raj has three main friends, Kumar (Bullet Prakash), Vishnu and David. One day he meets up with a girl called Rani (Navya Nair), who decides she will marry him, as he is a good person, and she knows that he would look after her. Raj is not at all happy about this, at first. Then Raj is arrested for a murder he did not commit, by an arrangement between the police and the criminal he had captured, so that the criminal could murder him in jail. However, Raj escapes from jail, and goes to the farmhouse where his brother is staying, only to find his brother has been murdered. He cremates the body, and goes off to the Construction Company, where he pretends to be Ram, and sets out to find out who had murdered his brother.
At this point he has a visit from CBI officer Sethunathan Iyer (Shivaji Prabhu), who says that he believes he is Raj, not Ram - and who sets out by devious means to prove this. He continues to play himself, as well pretending to be his brother. And in one scene he will have Sona loving him as Ram, and in another, Rani loving him as Raj!
The rest of the film is how Raj continues to try to find out who murdered his brother, and is full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end ? yes, until the very end.

Songs:
1. Gada Gada Shankara
2. Sona Sona
3. Jaane Jaaneman
4. Sarasava Bayasi
5. Muttu Muttutheeni

Released Year: 2010
Running Time: 144 minutes/Colour/Kannada

Review
Please note this film bears no resemblance to the excellent 2006 Telugu film ?Boss? (not subtitled) with Nagarjuna, subsequently dubbed in Malayalam as ?Boss I Love You? (subtitled in English) ? it is a completely different story.

?Boss? (Kannada) is a very ingenious film, and like all good detective stories, there are lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing right up to the final scene. Also like all good detective stories, there are lots of clues that you will have missed, that Raj discloses near the end, that helped him in his search for the truth. So it is a film you will want to watch and re-watch. Darshan fans will enjoy his triple (not dual) role ? where he plays not only two twin brothers, Raj and Ram, both with very different characters ? but the third role of Raj pretending to be Ram. He?s in his element as an action hero (as usual) and also as the romantic hero, with two girls, one as Raj and Rani, one as Ram and Sona, and one as Raj (pretending to be Ram) and Sona.


Not only is the picturisation of the songs interesting and varied, but the lyrics and music are good too.
?Gada Gada Shankara? is a song of general rejoicing, with Raj and his friends, the slum-dwellers, in colourful costumes.
?Sona Sona? is a delightful love song with Ram and Sona, set in Innsbruck, Austria.
?Jaane Jaaneman? is a love song with Raj and Rani, and a group of dancers. The male dancers are dressed in orange and black, the girls in yellow and black, then all in green and pale lemon, then the males in turquoise and pale lemon, and the girls in turquoise and white ? all in rural settings.
?Sarasava Bayasi? is a love song with Raj (as Ram) and Sona, on a beach.
?Muttu Muttutheeni? is a love song with Ram and Rani, in the mountains and countryside of Austria, and showing the famous Swarowski fountain ? near Innsbruck.


5 stars

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]