Film: “Dubai Babu”; Director: Naganna; Cast: Upendra, Nikitha, Saloni, Kumar Govind, Aryan Vaid, Dwarakish, Tennis Krishna, Sundar Raj, Ramesh Pandit and Sathyajith; Music: Sridhar; Rating: ***

Upendra’s performance dominates director Naganna’s “Dubai Babu”, which comes across as a racy and enjoyable entertainer. Despite being a remake of successful Telugu film “Dubai Seenu”, Naganna has brought about reinventions in “Dubai Babu”, specially the foot-tapping original songs.

And like in his previous hit “Budhdhivantha”, Upendra has tried to experiment with dialogue delivery, which is sure to click with audiences. “Dubai Babu” maintains its own standing mainly because of the crisp presentation, cool picturisation of songs, great comedy sequences and above all a blast of a performance from Upendra.

The promos of “Dubai Babu” had focussed more on the different get-ups of Upendra, but the film will captivate movie buffs for other elements as well. Most importantly, the film has shed some of the excessive baggage seen in the Telugu original.

The songs have some original peppy tunes and good lyrics that add to the pace of the film. All these positive factors make “Dubai Babu” more than just a masala entertainer.

Naganna, who has already delivered two big hits with Upendra, comes out with another success in “Dubai Babu”. He gets good support from his cast, particularly from his comedy artistes who have done an exceptional job.

Anil Xavier’s camera work and Keshava Adithya’s dialogues are just right. Three songs of the film - “Dochiko Bachchiko”, “Bendakaloora Gowda” and “Pe Pe Pe Dum Dum” - are perfectly composed and beautifully choreographed.

The story revolves around Babu (Upendra), who wants to make it big in Dubai, but his aspirations are dashed when he and his friends are cheated by a trickster.

Babu then meets Vasundhara (Nikitha) in Mumbai and instantly falls for her. But after a few meetings, Vasundhara disappears from Mumbai.

Babu then heads to Bangalore in search of Vasundhara, who has now become a radio jockey. But the trouble is that her uncle Inspector Kalaiah has evil designs to marry her and constantly terrorises Vasundhara and her father. What follows is how Babu hoodwinks Kalaiah to get close to Vasundhara. The movie also has an interesting revenge element.

The film basically belongs to Upendra as he excels in comic dialogue delivery and bashes up villains. He is equally at ease in romantic sequences. Glamorous Nikitha looks very good in the “Dochiko” song.

Saloni, another Bollywood import, has a much smaller role, but does well nevertheless. Comedy actors like Dwarkish, Tennis Krishna, Sathyajith and Sundar Raj are great in their roles.

“Dubai Babu” is a racy entertainer. Watch it for Upendra’s multifarious talents and Naganna’s competent direction.