With the triumph of Bichagadu 2 still fresh in his mind, Vijay Antony has just released the criminal thriller Hatya. Ritika Singh and Meenakshi Chaudhary also have significant parts in the Balaji K Kumar-directed film. Let’s see how the movie does now that it has premiered on theatres.
Story: Professional model Laila (Meenakshi Chaudhary) is killed in her flat. The fact that her flat was locked from within during the incident is puzzling. An IPS officer named Sandhya Mohan Raj (Ritika Singh) takes on the case and asks Vinayak (Vijay Antony), a private investigator, for assistance in solving it. Vinayak initially refuses, but subsequently joins forces with Sandhya to solve the murder.
Vinayak and Sandhya both have doubts about Babloo (Kishore Kumar), who poses as Laila’s manager, Satish (Siddhartha Shankar), Laila’s boyfriend, Arjun Vasudevan (Arjun Chidambaram), a well-known photographer, and Aditya Kowshik (Murali Sharma), a modelling agency agent. The focus of the film is on the person who killed Laila.
Performance: Hatya has a completely new appearance because to the incredible production design. There have been more investigative thrillers recently, but Hatya stands out because of the distinctive way its universe is portrayed. This crime thriller has a totally new atmosphere because to the amazing cinematography.
In Hatya, Vijay Antony plays a private investigator. His expression of salt and pepper felt quite natural. The subtlety of Hatya’s performance is one of its outstanding features. Vijay Antony follows his character’s instructions precisely and without exaggeration. He does a fantastic job of delivering dialogue and revealing the twist at the end.
The film becomes intriguing when the inquiry implicates all four suspects, which is depicted in some detail in both half of the investigation. The main character of the movie, Meenakshi Chaudhary, performed a good job. Her persona has a poetic quality. Vijay Antony receives some excellent backing from Ritika Singh.
Technicalities: The background music by Girishh Gopalakrishnan is excellent in the second half. In a couple scenes, the retro-style music worked wonderfully. Fantastic cinematography was created by Sivakumar Vijayan. The artwork added a brand-new dimension to the movie, so the art direction is especially deserving of praise. VFX could have used some improvement. The quality of the manufacture is nice.
There are significant editing errors. Regarding the movie’s director, Balaji K. Kumar, he did a mediocre job. While he did a good job with some of the investigative parts, the second half of the show was marred by needless family drama. However, Hatya’s terribly slow tempo is by far its largest flaw. The extremely slow pacing made even a few good passages lose their impact.
Analysis: The movie’s plodding pacing, which gets annoying after a while, is one of its main flaws. The characters were given a lot of screen time to be introduced in the beginning, but even after the investigative parts begin, the movie progresses slowly. For a better experience, the editing team should have cut the length of numerous sequences.
As we watch family scenes pertaining to Vijay Antony’s character, the first portion of the second half significantly deviates from the primary plot. The filmmaker made an effort to evoke familial feelings, but the plot didn’t require it.
Verdict: Both veteran performers, Radhika Sarathkumar and Murali Sharma, are squandered in minor roles and don’t have much to do in the movie. Additionally, Murali Sharma didn’t do the Telugu dubbing, thus it is a little hard to see someone else doing it in place of the excellent performance.
Rating: 1.75/5
