V Telugu Movie Review

            It is indeed unfortunate that Tollywood not only refuses to learn but occupies an adamant space of non-creativity. Both thematically and in treatment it is still template driven. Given the opportunity and the atmosphere one would have expected a creative artist (a halo that film maker Mohan Krishna Indraganti is free to summarily reject out of sheer honesty). To have scripted the Tom and Jerry tale to either a qualitative vertical or at least a signature horizontal. He does neither. Resultantly the film as V seems to convey that the letter denotes vainglorious, vanquished, vain _ _ _ _.

            A police officer is out to catch a serial killer. The killer has a plot in place. He leaves behind notifications and signals of his next victim. Every time the serial killer is two steps ahead of the star police investigator. The killer has motive and a reputation. The police officer has a romantic side story. The killer too walks the aisle with a romantic story. There is an anti-climax when the two meet finally in what turns out to be the most disappointing spot in the larger mediocre work.

            The film starts off with a riot with DCP Aditya (Sudheer Babu) taking on the hooligans. As he rips off his shirt – a la Salman Khan and goes about on the commands of the stunt man there is a clear indication that this film is like any other Tollywood script and has little in novelty or artistic imagination. His colleague is a victim of a gory murder. Tom and Jerry are at it. Unfortunately, the depiction of the various murders is gruesome and completely insensitive to the platform of display. It is time that film makers understand that the scale of depiction of violence on a larger screen is grammatically different to when blood spews in your drawing room. Unmindful, actually insensitive to such a nuance the script ends up being a manual on how to kill mercilessly, crudely and violently. The fig leaf justification for gullet cutting and face smothering murders is a pointer towards a deep-rooted misunderstanding of exaggerated violence being synonymous to entertainment. Structurally drenched in blood, narratively pushing the envelope for anarchy, grammatically filled with cliches the film has little to offer. Contrastingly it has so many pitfalls that it warrants summary rejection.

            The lead ladies Nivetha Thomas paired with Sudheer Babu and Aditi Rao Hydari paired with Nani are props and poorly decorated ones at that. It is sad and demeaning to the dignity and calibre of actors like Tanikella Bharani, Jayaprakash, Naresh to be given such feeble sticks for unjuicy carrots. It is particularly pathetic to see Vennela Kishore in a role that perhaps is more what Gundu Hanumanthu used to do. The lead characters add no credibility whatsoever. While most of the cop vs criminal drama is picturised in favour of the cop faded and dark shots rob the viewer of sometimes even viewing Nani properly. Nani fails to convince, Sudheer Babu does his best.

            It has been a while since viewers of Telugu cinema have had the opportunity to view anything new or fresh, leave alone innovative or artistic. V is not the answer. In fact, it pleads with you to archive search or move to regional neighbourhood for good entertainment. V earns earnestly, honestly and consistently a thumbs down.

L. Ravichander