Shankar Dada M.B.B.S.

Jayant Paranji's 2004 Telugu film follows a neighbourhood strongman. He has told his family for years that he is a doctor, and to keep the lie from collapsing he actually enrols in medical college. The axis is the method he applies in the hospital. Against every rule he embraces patients, talks with them and makes treatment a matter of human contact; the administration sees this as a threat. It is a remake of a film made in another language. Chiranjeevi leads and the comic passages carry the film, with Paresh Rawal as the principal. The tone is light and the emotional emphasis open. Who it's for: those who like commercial Telugu comedy. Who it's not for: viewers expecting the medical world treated realistically; the film uses the institution purely as ground for its jokes.