NOTA

NOTA means that we choose no one among the given options and need a new alternative. The movie team tried to use it as a metaphor for the beginning of a youngster’s rise in the political world that results in a huge change in the regular paradigm. How did he become the face of the alternative political system? Let’s discuss.

Plot : CM of the state Vasudev (Nassar) gets involved in a serious crime issue. Varun (Vijay Deverakonda) is a free soul, a blithe youngster who wants to enjoy every moment spent. Situations demand Vasudev make Varun the new Chief Minister of the state, trusting the words of a Swamiji. Firstly, Varun acts as a puppet in the show, his moral sense wakes up as their party members call for a statewide bandh. From there Varun is assisted by Mahendra (Sathyaraj), to tackle disparities in the government system and slowly learns to play the game.

Performances : Vijay Devarakonda has a good knack in selecting stories but he needs a good director and team too. In this film, he had a good team of actors who can challenge him but a crew that couldn’t really live up to the expectations that audience have from an actor like him.

Mehreen Prizada has no purpose in the movie. Sanchana is ok in few scenes but they had no depth. Satyaraj, M.S. Bhaskar and Naseer performed well but they were not given apt characters.

Technicalities : Music by Sam C. S is apt to the scenes when you consider the Back Ground Score but it is really underwhelming when you consider the tunes.

Cinematography by Santhana Krishnan Ravichandran is not really good in many parts. In a few scenes, his lighting schemes and shot division appears really good and in some, it makes no sense.

Editor Raymond Derrick Crasta was really unable to find a good rhythm with the shots and the scenes don’t even help him too.

Director Anand Shankar couldn’t really make an impression with the film at all. He had to create good enough situations and simple dialogues for those situations for actors to perform well. The screenplay and the direction of the film are so underwhelming that we cannot believe if he is the man who directed films like Arima Nambi and Irumugan.

Analysis : When you have a good cast like Vijay Devarakonda, Satyaraj, Nasser and M.S. Bhaskar you need to make sure that there is a good strong story to support their performances. This movie doesn’t have a good screenplay to support the story and the characters are written so amateurishly that the film doesn’t make any sense. The movie doesn’t work after the first 20 minutes as the characters don’t make any sense too.

Anand Shankar tried to show a crisis situation in Politics but the major problem in the movie lies in the execution and also as the cast is filled with superlative performers, we feel highly underwhelmed by the scenes that unveil on the screen. This is a missed opportunity for everyone in the team.

Rating : 2/5