Film Review: Does ‘James’ salute the late Puneet Rajkumar, his last film?

‘James’ Movie Review: Late actor Dr. Rajkumar is considered one of the best actors in the entire film industry of India and especially in the world of Kannada language films. He was not only a great actor, but his multifaceted personality brought unique respect to the Kannada language film industry. Puneeth, the third son of Dr. Rajkumar, worked in Kannada films like his father and elder brothers. Puneet also did many films as a child artist and as a hero he acted in a total of 29 films, out of which about 24 films were such that remained frozen for more than 100 days at the box office.

The Kannada film industry and his fans used to call him Power Star. Unfortunately, in October last year, he died of a heart attack at the young age of just 46, leaving the entire Kannada film industry and his millions of fans in mourning. Some of his films remained incomplete because of this, but what is not possible in the age of technology. One of his films “James” which had only dubbing and one song left in its shooting, was released on his birthday on 17 March 2022 and now has its OTT premiere on Sony Liv on 14 April.

The kind of entertainment and masala films that Puneet was known for and what his fans used to expect from him, will be seen in full in this film. His voice was dubbed by his elder brother Shiva Rajkumar, but efforts are being made to re-release the film by dubbing the film in Puneet’s original voice with the help of technology.

At the time of its release in theatres, James created a storm and did a business of more than 100 crores within a week. This can be considered as a small sample of the craze of his fans towards Puneet. In the story of the film, an army officer leaves some orphan children in an orphanage for upbringing and these children grow up to be educated and start working in good positions. Of these, Puneet goes to the Army and then works in the Special Forces. One of these friends is an officer on whose marriage all the friends meet.

Some time ago, the police officer Mitra would have arrested the special people of the gang leader by busting the drug business of an international gang. Other gang members barge into Puneet’s friend’s wedding and kill all the friends and their families, Puneet survives after getting injured. Puneet kills the murderers of his friends one by one but is fired from the army. With the help of his senior officer, Puneet accepts the secret mission of ending the entire drug business and all the gangs. Becoming a security consultant, he becomes the bodyguard of another gang leader and then gains his trust and learns his secrets. Then one by one he destroys the enemies of the gang leader and finally the gang and the gang leader as well.

From the point of view of the story, the story is absolutely masala. All the films of Puneet are like this masala, but some messages are also hidden. Puneet fits perfectly in his role and looks very fit. Action (Ravi Varma, Chetan D’Souza) has also been thrown in full. Puneet looks comfortable even in action. One thing that probably makes him the favorite of millions of people is his honest face. He never seems to listen to frivolous jokes or any cheap jokes. There is gentleness on his face and along with it a serious kind of honesty which is not seen in most of the actors.

Despite being in the shadow of his father, Puneet’s rise to power star status, that too by acting in only 29 films, is proof that Puneet was not an ordinary actor. He is accompanied by Priya Anand in the film who is not the heroine of the film but her role has been kept similar to that of Puneet’s girlfriend. Hindi film viewers must have seen Priya in many commercials. Her acting is mediocre but Priya’s weak acting doesn’t make any difference as the focus in Puneet’s film is only on Puneet. Srikanth’s performance in the role of Vijay Gaikwad is good. Many actors come to the film only to get beaten up and killed by Puneet, including Mukesh Rishi. The roles of Puneet’s friends and co-workers are also small and no special acting skills were required.

The story and direction is by Chetan Kumar whose this is his fourth and possibly his biggest film. It is evident that this film has been written after taking inspiration from some Hollywood films, and taking inspiration from many other similar films of South India. There are two parts to the story. One, in which Puneet is the owner of a security agency and his name is Santosh and the other part where he is an army officer and his name is James. While writing the story, writer Chetan did not create any fundamental difference between the two roles, due to which there would be no chance to see another dimension of Puneet’s acting.

There was no scope for doing comedy on Puneet’s part, while his fans also like his comedy very much. Swami Gowda has done good cinematography. The grandeur of the film can be gauged in long shots and wide angle shots. He has been successful in his endeavor to show maximum screen time to Puneet. Deepu Kumar, who has been an editor in many of Puneet’s films, has edited the film. Probably this work must have been emotional for him because of Puneet’s untimely death, so he has tried to keep all the scenes of Puneet in the film. The music of Charan Raj, which has become a super hit because of Puneet. There are only 4 songs, some are cut from the story, but if there are songs filmed on Puneet, then how can the viewers complain.

The film is completely spicy, just a real heroine with whom Puneet could play true romance, she was lacking. After a long time of watching masala films like Pushpa, RRR and KGF 2, now you can see James included in this list. It would be better if it is seen as a great tribute to Puneet Rajkumar.

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