Now Premiering - V

  V – Entertaining and Innovative in the space of familiarity.

In an Interview of Mohan Krishna Indraganti, the Writer and Director said that the core story of V was shaped out way back in 2006. In 2018, post-Sammohanam, Dil Raju (Producer) longed for a script like V as the markets for such genre had just opened ( Ratsasan etc.). So V is a culmination of your Garden-side Psycho-police mind games with the action entertaining elements and release might be the case of right ( I’d love to call it manageable) concept at the wrong time.

The endless list of external travesties like #Nani25, #NanivsSudheer, #Sept5release ( which is the date of #Nani1 release – Ashta Chamma ) and many more made the movie look more stale. One more important factor is the influence of current Psycho Killer genre in a yesterdecade script. The audience has become smart, mature and very much exposed to all the brilliant content outside of Tollywood and a movie this cheesy in presentation with Style > Substance formulas only can cut out trailers and motion posters but can never overshadow the slightly lower on the number of being quick and intelligent ( which is slightly more important in this genre ).

If we talk about the movie as a movie, complaining seems to be just an option. The movie has enough masala and entertainment quotient to at least make you sit through 125min approx. ( 140min is the runtime). Mohan Krishna Indraganti’s touch of sizzling comedy and dialogue, which is a proven arena for him, makes scenes propel in the right direction. They at least help in preparing the audience with a dash of suspense( but don’t expect more).

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Nani as the antag..?protag....? ok let's just call him Villain ( which too he won’t be for a long time ), is an example of maybe perfect casting or maybe perfect role-playing. In the intro shot, the strong puff of smoke which he inhales as the cigarette tip glows red is a very effective and minimalistic way of showing his rage over the to-be-murdered  “bad guy”. Nani as the Villain is shot raw, grim and never close to gullible. It would be a dream of any villain to be presented this far from the stereotype. From the bearded grin, the voice, to the eyes, the smile that he gives sipping chai – his face cut from close-up looks like Raavan.

While Nani as Villain is burning red hot, the elements and characters just remain luke-warm, being extended props for reciprocating emotions to his heinous acts. The "One-on-One" contest of cat and mouse games, the "flashbacks", the "heroines" and to an extent ‘Sudheer Babu’ ( keeping him in a single quote as he wasn’t wasted severely ) feel superfluous and cheeky in the presentation. Who better to make things cheeky than Mohan Krishna Indraganti – if you know his work like Ashta Chamma(2008), Gentlemen(2016) and Sammohanam(2018). 

There is a great sense of innovation, surprisingly, credit goes to Mohan Krishna for his very fresh and stylized take of Action and Crime. Also to mention the slick Cinematography by P.G.Vinda, whose work gave a perfect look and feel for the gravity of plot, with his sense of Reddish-Yellow fill lighting, dark colour palettes and some eyebrow-raising framing. There is no tentativeness in saying the movie looks on par with an International Crime thriller at points. Thaman's background score adds up to the mood.

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The movie could have had an explosion of lip-smacking possibilities and end up being ahead of the curve of creative liberties and deep plot holes to make for high potential and detailed Police-Psycho mind game movie. The Lack of Suspense you feel when you ask yourself repeatedly in your mind What next? is nowhere sustained. It just feels Entertaining and Innovative in the space of familiarity. If not it just feels like an Indian brother of The Saw Series with all the booze of heroines, love songs, Airborne action extras, and unused artists like Vennela Kishore, Naresh, Tanikella Bharani etc.