Star Cast- Nani, Sudheer Babu, Nivetha Thomas and Aditi Rao Hydari
Genre- Action Thriller
Rating- **
Predictable and as old as the hills!
Jyothi Venkatesh
This film can be touted as the first ever first-day-first-show after six long months of inertia, after the cinema houses were shut and the OTT platform became the most sought after. While Tamil and Kannada films have already started taking the OTT route, V is the first Telugu film to take the OTT route via Amazon Prime Video.
The action thriller V, now streaming on Amazon Prime, has the gem of a thought triggered from the Korean action thriller I Saw The Devil and also traces of mainstream Telugu films of Raghavendra Rao and Boyapati Srinu and to put it frankly, the film is a mix and match of old wine in new bottle and is, sorry to say, as ancient as the hills.
The skirmishes between the serial criminal killer Vishnu (Nani) and cop Aditya (Sudheer Babu) set the ball rolling and making you hope for the best but you are soon disappointed. Aditya is lauded for his work as deputy commissioner of police, West Zone, Hyderabad. He also flaunts his six-pack abs on a men’s magazine cover and is a media darling. A fellow cop is gruesomely murdered but the killer leaves behind a note and challenges Aditya to nab him .
Nani starrer V
There are unnecessary diversions to the inane plot like the knife-toting parents (Rohini and ‘Thalaivasal’ Vijay) or crime writer Apoorva (Nivetha Thomas) who hardly registers any impact and only makes us drool over her assets. While Aditi Rao Hydari fits in with her mix of innocence and vulnerability that suits her short role, Vennela Kishore as the protagonist cop’s sidekick helps lighten the drama and at one point, takes a clever jibe at comic actors who are newly signed on for big budget commercial films.
Nani is effective as the cruel killer who is on a spree of taking his revenge while Nivetha who is hired as a criminal psychology consultant, barely gets to do anything to help the cop to solve problems while solving the cases and is in general redundant. Sudheer is just about passable as the positive cop especially since Nani walks away with the title role as V. Aditi is expressive and does her part well though it does not have layers and is bumped off before you can even blink
The biggest handicap of the film is that though it is touted as action thriller, there are only by now patented action choreography which we have seen in umpteen numbers of films and the film fails to present something novel or stimulate you. There is hardly any relief and the music is also very disappointing to say the least, though the action sequences have been choreographed with finesse. To sum up, the film lacks a plausible and intelligent plot and is a rehash of several earlier Telugu potboilers and is just a onetime watch, at least for the sake of Nani who regaled the pan Indian audiences in Makhi
