Now Premiering - Falaknuma Das

Falaknuma Das –  Close to a Remake.

                            Close to being an Individual film.

                             But, not both.

                                             

Release - 2019

Starring - Vishwak Sen Naidu , Uttej, Tharun Bhaskar, Venkatesh Kakumanu, Sunjith                                     Akkinepalli, Saloni Mishra, Harshitha Gaur and others

Written and Directed by - Vishwak Sen Naidu

Producer - Karate Raju, Vishwak Sen Naidu.

Language - Telugu

Available on - Amazon Prime Video

         Falanuma Das, as the name suggests, is the story which revolves around Das and his men, who seek inspiration, since their childhood, from the Falaknuma’s go to man Shankar Anna. This gang does try to imitate and become as strong as that of Shankar Anna and sometimes do get received by some tips from the man himself. Eventually, these kids grow up to become Adults and become the very next gang to be throned to Falaknuma after the Shankar Anna’s, as he gets murdered. Over the years, this gang goes up the hierarchy to become the supreme gang led by the New king Das a.k.a Falaknuma Das. These men strive towards setting up a mutton business because when it comes to Das, he has this constraint to impress and to assure his girlfriend’s family to woe her and to the remaining gang it's about earning easy money and respect. This ordeal of establishing their first business leads their lives, more importantly, Das’s life to take a path of an unexpected and brutal crime. Does  Das eventually succeed in the business?? Did Das marry his girlfriend or did she leave him alone to rot?? What exactly was it that happened which completely turned his life upside down?? Is the crux of the flick.

                                    This movie has bagged a great positive pre-release response because of the zing in its teasers and trailers, but post its release, the movie received a mixed bag of responses as people did have irresistible problems with the movie. The movie had both sides of the audience who hated it and loved it. This review tries to justify both sides of the audience and place its opinion right in the middle of both.

 The story, as such, is an actual remake of Malayalam Super Hit film Angamaly Diaries. Angammaly diaries also had the same template where the area called Angamaly becomes the centre of the plot where the characters live and breathe. Vishwak Sen and his team have smartly managed to scrape this feel of the area from Angamaly to Falaknuma and weave a similar but not the same story out of its counterpart. Instead of making a complete remake, which if done would've been more problematic as of its regionality, took the essence and vibe and instilled it in Falaknuma, with its own dialect and energy.  This refrained the movie from many hindrances remakes face among the film industries like regionality and understanding. The movie gets Written, Directed and led by Vishwak Sen which in reality became a double-edged sword. The movie hits the right target in the naturalistic portrayal of the by-lanes and localities of Falaknuma, in a broader sense, the Old City of Hyderabad and also showcasing the traits of the people there. It gets very much transparent in its lingo and doesn’t lose out on the punch and flavour that it creates. As far as the dialogues are concerned, they stick to the plot as they create both subtle humour and flesh out the story. Good parts in this aspect end there. The inexperience of Vishwak Sen gets exposed in Dialogues and Narration as they safely get filled with surreal and vernacular dialogues rather than having  a more powerful and influential one The dialogues get more repetitive and used up as a set of words coming again and again into movie, the writer’s should’ve explored the dialect well to have more variety and newness to the lines

 The editing and narrative have its inconsistencies. At once the movie is pumping with adrenaline and in the very next scene, it drops down and becomes bland. The movie seems a bit prolonged as there are a few unnecessary coming abruptly amidst the timeline and just so that they’re well composed and shot it feels bearable. One more pivotal problem in the movie is the establishment of the characters which gets affecting by the narrative of the movie. These kinds of movies, wherein the characters are ranging in all the directions, can have a lesser depth and premise for their characterizations, but if the narrative would’ve been tighter and grasping removing the unwanted bits and filling  with the intrigue and eerieness of these characters in the story, the movie would’ve had more scope to justify its genre and have a pulsing connect with the audience. 

                   The casting gets its own appreciation, as we get to a lot of new talent playing the different versions of local boy roles with ease. More than 15 fresh faces are roped in for the movie and the movie just gets fuelled with energy with their overwhelming performances. But, at times it feels the artists try too hard in their slang and acting to bring out the feel and very soon it becomes artificial. Even Vishwak Sen has his own ups and downs in delivering a consistent performance. This unbalanced enacting of the characters kills the spirit except for few actors like Tharun Bhasker, Sunjith Akkinepalli who maintain their liveliness in the character right through the movie’s runtime. These actors play their roles with completeness and honesty to the roles given to them. When it comes to woman, the heroine’s share absolutely very little to no chemistry at all with the hero. Notice that I only mentioned about one girlfriend in the first para as the other two female leads share negligible connect both with Das and the story making them completely unnecessary. These characters just act as fillers and serve no purpose other than to empathise with the hero. Angamaly Diaries had more prominence and strength to its female leads when compared to Falaknuma Das. Malayalam Cinema needs to be appreciated and should be learned from in this aspect as they frequently fetch out a well written and strong female characters.

                    The only departments which have no black spots on its work are the Music and Cinematography. Both of them are innovative and snappy. The flippant and stylish cinematography Vidya Sagar wrapped with the rumbling and chaotic music of Vivek Sagar give the frames a delight to watch. But there is so much a Background score and Cinematography can do.

                  In a nutshell, the movie has its fair share of goods and bads, professionalism and immature sense of cinema, but it is both obvious and rhetoric in its own sense. The movie might feel like big let down due to its unshakable inconsistencies but can also be watched for fun for its surreal and energetic depiction of the people in Hyderabad. It has the elements to foray into the minds of the audience, but to impress them is what one cannot say,  as art and cinema are purely subjective and depends upon person to person.