Synccinema Quickie - RED

RED – The safe gamble of filmic natters and terrific thrills

Let’s understand the word honest remake, which has 2 ways in the adoption of a story – Cloning the Original and Re-mastering the original. While Cloning is the safest, it tends to borrow a non-innovative version catered to a different audience ( Eg. Rakshasudu ). Re-mastering demands skill and proper understanding of the subject to re-create the magic of the original, which if done, will stand out better than the Original ( Eg. Kuruthipunal ). Red, directed by Kishore Tirumala falls short of an honest remake by a mile. 

Red is parts Cloning and parts Re-mastering, and the best mostly lies in Cloning. As said, re-master demands a proper understanding of the subject and Kishore Tirumala’s melodramatic and overly drawn dialogue treatment never rises above the horizon of impressing us. The Director’s previous works also had a dialogue-heavy, exhausting conversation which at least touched the right base in the space of rom-com-dram. Red isn’t a rom-com-dram, it a unique whodunit which has its strengths.

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The original script had few weak points, the major one of them being the setup before the crime. The pre-text, though ends in an exciting high has Siddharth’s side, the romantic side, being a run of the mill Boy falls for a girl and eventually, Girl falls for this Boy, they make love. Kishore Thirumala further makes it run of the mill with his poetic dialogues, standard destination romantic song and some cheesy comedy. These elements which felt in place for Nenu Sailaga, Hello Guru Prema Kosame etc. feel out of place here and lag the story.

The exciting high mentioned before has a major contribution from Cloning and authentic translation of Adithya’s side, the crime-thriller side, which continues to be the biggest strength till the end. Adithya’s side is an entertaining character study of flawed protagonists and Kishore Tirumala’s timely comedic touches from Satya further makes it crowd friendly. The addition of an item song Dhinchak Dhinchak is again a misfire, slowing the pace only for some seduction-suckers in mass. There’s little that Mani Sharma‘s energetic beats can do, though his thematic score is true to the story.

The fore-bearer had a masked technique resulting out of excellent cinematic storytelling, cleverly hinting us clues using skewed and straight framing. The best of Re-masters in this movie by Kishore Tirumala is he transcends the framing to colour palette differentiation with the help of Cinematographer Sameer Reddy. Sidharth’s world is always filled with light shades, mainly blue, indicating the cool and classy nature of his. Whereas, Aditya’s world is filled with dark colours mainly, Maroons-browns-oranges, indicating warm shades for his impulsive mentality. They both even have their stay at the PS with light blue formal and dark brown t-shirt respectively. Look closely and you'll narratively find the Killer in a shot. 

The Original Script is backed by a Solidly exercised Double Action trope for a whodunit rather than just a doubled up Hero’s screen presence for double the cheers. This Prime factor entirely backs the post-murder proceedings and makes us always hooked as we see an arresting simultaneous interrogation and backstories of both the people. It helps that both of them have a very plausible and imperceptible motive for the murder. Ram’s performance of being smooth in one and harsh in the other has a very convincing appeal and his styling to body language flaunts an easy counterpart for Arun Vijay’s original.

KracK 

A unique concoction of rehash and re-invention of a dying genre

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Red is a safe gamble of filmic natters and terrific thrills with Kishore Tirumala trying to mainstream-ize the setup as well as sticking to the roots for the whodunit. The movie can keep the audience engaged till the end with its unique plot, maybe ending up making them ask for more.