Gajakesari

Gajakesari is a commercial flick that sends a message to the society. Krishna, who came to limelight with his brilliant camerawork in ‘Mungaru Male’, has promoted himself as a director and has done a remarkable job in his first assignment. Though the entire focus of the story is on hero Yash, ultimately tusker ‘Kalinga’ emerges the hero. With a neat script and narration, Krishna has handled the story that highlights the link between politicians and forest mafia who want to build a resort by clearing a hamlet. It is sure to keep Yash fans in happy as it has romance, sentiment and brilliant action sequences by Ravi Varma. Perhaps the director should have trimmed the movie by 15 minutes.

The story begins with Krishna (Yash) who is in a dilemma as he was asked to be head a math or donate an elephant if he does not want to head it. Krishna prefers the latter and goes to forest in search of an elephant. In the forest, he lands in Anegudda, a hamlet belonging to tribals who are experts in taming elephants. However, they tell Krishna about a rogue tusker Kalinga and as him not to go near it. Surprising all, Krishna encounters Kalinga but emerges unharmed. The director takes us 360 years ago to tell about another person who protected the elephants. If we come back to present story, we find that Rana and Selva involved in forest mafia, want to build a resort in the Anegudda hamlet. The politician also backs them. But Krishna takes on them with the help of Kalinga. When he comes to the math with the elephant, he is excused by the swamiji (Anant Nag) who tells him to do good work by living with tribals.
It’s Yash show all the way. He has given life to his character with excellent expression and dialogue delivery in all sequences. Amulya has very little to do. Santhosh Anand Ram’s dialogues are quite interesting as they repeatedly mention about Rajkumar movies. Sachina Heggar’s costume for Yash and Amulya are good. Depi S Kumar done a perfect job in editing. Camera work by Sathya Hegde is brilliant. V Harikrishna offers a bunch of lovely tunes.