Bazaar Rowdy Movie Review: A Sampoornesh Babu film that forgets it was supposed to be a parody

Title: Bazaar Rowdy

Cast: Sampoornesh Babu, Nagineedu, and others

Director: V Nageswara Rao

Rating: 1.5/5

Movie titles featuring the word 'Rowdy' have had a special pull in the history of Telugu cinema. In a bygone era, titles as varied as 'Rangoon Rowdy' and 'Assembly Rowdy', 'Kiraayi Rowdylu' and 'State Rowdy', 'City Rowdy' and 'Street Rowdy', were made. There are at least a dozen more masala flicks with the word 'Rowdy' in the title. Just this year, we have got 'Gully Rowdy' and 'Rowdy Boys' being made. The film under review borrows its title from a 1988 movie by the same name. 

Kali (Sampoornesh Babu) ran away from home as a child, as he felt that his well-meaning father (Nagineedu) was abusive. A child prodigy in breaking bones, he becomes the saviour of a 'Basthi', where he pulverizes extortionists as a child so that he doesn't have to work when he becomes an adult. He morphs into a reckless, irreverent, good-natured, much-revered 'dada' of the street, saving harassed women and the oppressed. Years later, he has to reclaim his family business empire from three evil men (played by Sayaji Shinde, Prudhviraj, and Late Kathi Mahesh).

Sampoornesh Babu, whose moniker 'Burning Star' is purportedly meant to indicate his comedy-hero credentials, takes himself too seriously in this film. His 'Hrudaya Kaleyam' and 'Kobbari Matta' were enjoyable, exaggerated parodies. But 'Bazaar Rowdy' is the kind of film where he, in all seriousness, flirts with three cousins (in the '80s and '90s, star heroes and wannabe star heroes used to have more than one 'maradalu' to romance with) and three aunts (a trope that only big stars would dare to indulge in back then). At one point, he calls himself the great SV Ranga Rao (without making it clear whether he is laughing at himself or congratulating himself). In another scene, he challenges a businesswoman by talking like a clone of NT Rama Rao. 

'Bazaar Rowdy' is what you get when you forget that you are supposed to make a parody. Like a mass hero, the lead man tells someone that he will shatter his arrogance. A so-called 'item' song follows, in which Sampoornesh Babu proceeds to behave as though he is a consummate romantic hero with excellent dancing skills. 

If the first half is '80s-era action drama with a series of gags, the second half deteriorates further. But for references to Coronavirus and the wall posters of the latest movies, the outdated tropes (extortionists harassing small businessmen, street fights, a scene involving eve-teasers) would have convinced you that the film was made when Ramesh Babu wanted to be the original Burning Star of Telugu cinema. 

Shinde, Prudhviraj and Kathi Mahesh come up with the most boring ideas to hoodwink Nagineedu, who doesn't look sad when his son goes missing for years and behaves as though his servant has returned from his village after the Dasara holidays when the son is back after a self-imposed exile. 

Sampoornesh Babu is the kind of comedian Tollywood needs but he shouldn't do movies where his character believes that he should bash up the baddies in slow motion like a superstar and flirt with the heroine like a self-conscious joker. 

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