A dampener despite presence of multi-star cast
There was huge hype behind the movie V due to many reasons. Primary being the presence of two prominent heroes as lead actors with one of the actors Nani appearing in his 25th film in his career. Then this film is bankrolled by one of the biggest production and distribution houses lead by Raju popularly known as Dil Raju. Also, the reputation of the director of the film Mohana Krishna Indraganti who has made many successful films like Grahanam, Golconda High School, Gentleman, and Sammohanam is another factor which is responsible for the hype it created. Above all, this is the first major Telugu feature film premiered on an OTT platform skipping the regular theatrical release due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence with all these factors contributing, there is much hype around V, which is streaming now on Amazon Prime.
Storyline
DCP Aditya (Sudheer Babu) is a righteous police officer who won many laurels for his service to the nation and in maintaining the highest standards of policing. He is challenged by a killer (Nani) whose name will be revealed only after half-time who commits various murders including a police officer.
Aditya who gets puzzled by these serial murders chases the killer to stop the murders but he gets outsmarted every time by the killer who has the last laugh always. How is this game going to end and who is going to win this is what the entire story of V is about.
Performances of Artistes
Both Sudheer Babu and Nani excel in their performances. Sudheer Babu exudes more confidence and energy in his character. Nani who plays a complex character which had different shades has put his heart and soul into the character but it fails to make the impact required by such an intricate character due to various loopholes in his characterization.
Nivetha Thomas as Apoorva Ramanujam who plays the fangirl of Aditya fails to impress as there is nothing for her to perform except to dance hysterically in a song.
Aditi Rao Hydari too appears in a short role of a girl who gets hitched by Nani and she had little scope to do something to prove her acting skills except blushing and looking beautiful in a montage song.
Vennala Kishore as Mansoor the sidekick of Sudheer Babu is wasted as were Rohini, Tenikella Bharani, Naresh, Harish Uthaman, and others as they are just like onlookers without any scope for performance.
Direction & Technical Aspects
Mohana Krishna Indraganti thinks differently and makes films with a lot of conviction. But in his maiden attempt in the genre of action thriller, he faltered in conceiving an interesting story and equally failed to transform the story and screenplay on to the screen in a convincing manner. The main characteristics necessary for a thriller film, suspense, and intrigue are missing badly in V making it another routine film. There is no novelty or variation in the film giving that everything was seen before feeling turning this film into a damp squib.
When the story and its execution are lopsided, other departments fail to raise the bar. Cinematography by P G Vinda though looks colourful and pleasing, his effort goes down the drain, and the music of Amit Trivedi sounds outdated so is the background music of S.Thaman which fails to create the magic.
Editing by Marthand K Venkatesh is poor with all the three songs testing the patience and the movie drags without any interesting twists or unexpected thrills and the item song during pre-climax is not at all a bright idea as it hindered the narrative. How Mohana Krishna can allow this?
Verdict & Rating
When we come out of 2+ hours and item song syndrome, then only we can expect some interesting and entertaining films. Making films of thriller with action genre is very tricky and they need to be handled cautiously with a compact storyline and slick screenplay and these were found missing in V, as a result, it got relegated to an ordinary film devoid of any excitement.
Nani fans can enjoy but all others may not like V and its release on a digital platform is an advantage so that those who had enough time to kill can watch this just for time pass without any expectations.
