Rating: ★★★ Banner: Maitra Entertainment Producer: Satish More, Sneha Tambe, Girish Salvi, Laxman Salunkhe, Aditya Sharma Director: Kishor Pandurang Belekar Story – Screenplay: Kishor Pandurang Belekar Dialogues: Girish Salwi Cinematography: Raees Ansari Cast: Ashutosh Rana, Reema Lagoo, Kishori Shahane, Satish Pulekar, Aniket Vishwasrao Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

Director kishore Pandurang Belekar known for his debut Marathi horror film ‘Sa Sasucha’ and Asutosh Rana better known for his portrayal of dangerous characters in films like ‘Dushman’ and ‘Sanghrash’ have come together to offer new Marathi film ‘Yeda’, which is also debut film of Ashutosh Rana in Marathi. Therefore, this film had a special significance, knowing the capacity of these two people in their respective departments i.e. direction and acting. Moreover, the film having received ‘A’ certification of Censors, it was certainly expected to be horror filled film.

Set on the backdrop of a small town off Mumbai, the story of the film revolves around a psychic character of Appa Kulkarni ( Ashutosh Rana) who tortures his wife Savitri ( Kishori Shahane Vij) and wants his only young son Unmesh ( Aniket Vishwasrao), who is a Site Engineer, to marry a girl from wealthy family, so that he could recover all the expenses, he spent on his education. But, Unmesh who is in love with Pradnya( Pradnya Shastri) the only daughter of a postmaster from local Post office Mr. Vasant Narvekar( Satish Pulekar).

Knowing the dangerous nature of her husband, Savitri encourages her son to flee with Pradnya, suggesting him to take up another job at a new place. Pradnya gives a shock to her parents, as she flees with Unmesh, without taking them into confidence. Her mother Sadhana ( Reema Lagoo) feels more hurt. But, the psychic father of Unmesh doesn’t take this shock lightly. When Unmesh returns with his wife to seek the blessings of his kind hearted mother; Appa is almost on the verge of killing his own wife; who suggests her son to run away . Both manage to escape, as Appa follows them.

Appa is now after the blood of his own son and his daughter in law who is now pregnant. Violent Appa succeeds in his series of killings, targeting whoever comes in the way. Helpless Pradnya returns to her parents in that condition and finally delivers a baby boy; but breathes her last during delivery. The child is now in the custody of Vasant and Sadhana Narvekar; who are threatened by Appa to hand over the child. The entire post interval session is filled with mystery, as to what would be the next step of Appa and how Vasant Narvekar would face him. After face to face battle, Vasant escapes from the clutches of violent Appa in the climax, due to intervention of Police brought by his wife.

While he is overpowered by Police team, he warns Vasant that he would return soon to take back the child. And courageous Vasant dares to answer him back, stating that between him and his grandson, he would stand like a wall, to accept his challenge. In the climax scene, Vasant could have finished Appa in self defence; but it seems that the director had a sequel of this film in mind. The film which had held its grip over the screenplay for 130 minutes , therefore failed to satisfy the audience in the climax with an expected revenge, which was perhaps differed till part 2 of ‘Yeda’, as indicated through the concluding dialogue.

Technically, ‘Yeda’ is a well presented film by director Kishore Belekar , with good effective sound recording by Sanil P.K. and good support of location sound coming from Anil Nikam. Photography by Raees Ansari is very apt to the screenplay of this film. In the lead role Ashutosh Rana has really worked hard to present his dangerous character. He has received good support from versatile senior artistes like Satish Pulekatr, kishori Shahane and Reema Lagoo, who have performed equally well. In fact, it is a common man’s (Vasant Narvekar’s) courageous fight against violent ‘Yeda’ (Appa).

The young performers Aniket and Pradnya do not find much scope in this film; but, they have played their roles satisfactorily. Barring the violence part and not so convincing climax, ‘Yeda’ is otherwise a good creation.