Synccinema Quickie - KracK

Krack – Krack is a unique concoction of rehash as well as re-invention of a dying genre.

Krack, in its very first minute, seems not to be wasting time with the focus on a so-called Highly wanted criminal’s BBC interview ( the interview theme is later forgotten anyway ). He interestingly states that a trivial 50rupee note has led to his arrest. Now, the idea of a trivial Note, mango and a nail had an influence on 3 big shots getting arrested and no-nonsense Cop as the manifesto, is meaty enough. In Contrast, the overall field of view from the Writer isn’t automatically no-nonsense.

Krack, being a chanced return-to-form flick of a desperate Ravi Teja is also a unique concoction of rehash as well as the reinvention of a dying genre. It’s a flip coin which only has 2 outcomes, one full of inspirations and clichés and the other filled with refreshing takes made with acknowledgement to current tastes - ( this is the part where the Massy Cop Drama is spiced up with the millennial audience in mind ).

The Writing, which overarches all the elements in any movie, here, is mainly aimed at crowd pulling the Single Screen audience to Ravi Teja’s owning and warm charisma filled with his active humour and cheeky suave. The attempted world-building feels like an Updated “Singham”, partially dusting yesteryear Mass elements like Heavy Dialogues ( Sai Madhav Burra’s dialogues are punchy and earth-shatteringly weighted, but the hardly arresting script is fractionally shouldered ), Elevation scenes which bluntly indicate the hype, staying away from a layered approach to making the hero, a God.

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The Writing also re-invents the genus with its shift in definitions for the characters and their relations with our Super Cop. Samuthakarani’s Katari Krishna and Varalakshmi Sarathkumar’s Jayamma whelmed by a rooted Ongole flavour in their evident lifestyle and mindset are thankfully not caricatures. They both even have a back story that again dusts off the old “Villain’s terrifying dark Past” trope.

The best part of writing is in its meta-references that come from the multitude subjects touched in mainstream Telugu Cinemas of the 2000s, which almost is a fully developed under-current, subtlely hinting the coming or happening scenes of the movie. Take the reference of Kotha BangaruLokam, which is a story of misunderstood teenage love, what happens next is also a similar misunderstanding of coming-of-age love. The first glimpse of the bloodthirsty wolf gang is preceded with a wall poster of Sonu Sood’s role of a living monster Pasupathi in Arundhati.   

The Hero-heroine romantic track is re-invented in shifting from pre to post-marital love-hate relationship with them dealing with their son’s presence and overcoming as a dysfunctional family of an Impulsive Cop. There is the unavoidable stalking and love as youngsters continuing, but that is reduced only to a song. Now, this might be a plus for avoiding the quintessential track or a minus for its lazy writing in safely cleaning hands with a romantic number.

Ravi Teja’s energy and nack for lightheartedness ace his parts as Police and a homely father respectively. Shruthi Hassan doesn’t have a greater scope of craziness to unleash in her character, though she does have an equally crazy and massy fight sequence as that of a Commercial Telugu hero. This fight sequence, in concept, feels refreshing as well as a sly joke, until it strikes as a convenient and cheap duos-ex Machina – which only could’ve been avoided by lending some of that subtle meta-referencing to hinting that she was a much more powerful person than the humble housemaker.

Cinematography by G.K.Vishnu deserves a special mention for his invigorating frames and popped lighting in the space of stale story and familial commotion. Thaman’s songs reach the zone of mockery with the lost loving verve and done-to-dust tunes. His background music, though stimulating, feels noisy and irritating if looped for the entire runtime. Naveen Nooli’s edit is crisp and saves us from overdrawn coverage of boring sequences.

Anaganaga Oo Athidi 

Dramatic Tension from the Old School

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Krack is a movie of binary outcomes in reviving the Mass Cop Genre ( and from that Ravi Teja ) which has enough dazzle and mirth to cling us throughout or rehashing overused and outdated tropes for us to leave the hall unsatisfied for a festival release. Be it Mass Maharaja’s performance or the elevating scenes drowned in BGM, all the building blocks fall in either of the categories, in turn, helping the movie or cracking its connect leading to a Binary reception.