Hero Aadi Saikumar’s Top Gear under the direction of K Shashikanth has hit the screens today. Let’s see how it fares.

Story: Arjun ( Aadi Saikumar), a cab driver by profession gets involved in a drug rocket without his knowledge. Later, he becomes soft target for a drug dealer Siddharth (Mime Gopi). What is the role of Arjun’s wife Aadhya( Riya Suman) in the entire setup? How will Arjun face hurdles and get out of the mess, forms key crux.

Performances: Aadi Saikumar is good with his usual acting but his look is same which we have been seen him in previous films. While Aadi did action stunts well, his acting during the tense scenes in the second half elevate the mood of the film.

Heroine Riya Suman is glamorous on screen and her chemistry with Aadi is showcased nicely in a montage family song. Her acting during the climax portions bring depth to the proceedings.

Mime Gopi is believable in his main antagonist role. His screen presence adds weightage to a few key portions. Actor Shatru is fine in his cop role. Other padding artists like Brahmaji, Satyam Rajesh among others are okay in their respective roles.

Technicalities: The cinemautography by Sai Sriram is captivating as he captured the mood of the film nicely. Especially, his work in canning night mood shots is impressive. The editing work by Prawin Pudi is okay but he would have chopped off a few dull moments in the first half to make things even more gripping.

Harshavardhan Rameswar’s music registers. While the film has only one soothing montage, the background score works at parts in the key second half. The production values form this tight budget movie are fine.

Analysis: K Shashikanth’s idea of interlinking drug mafia concept with family emotions is decent. While his writing is neat, the execution part has a few thrilling elements in the second half. If Shashikanth would have worked on the first half proceedings at the scripting stage itself, the result would have been even better.

After a decent interval block, the audience expect an engaging second half with good presentation but the director confuses the audience by bringing too many characters into the narrative. To summarize, Top Gear is a routine drama coated with drug mafia element as the key aspect. Though Aadi Saikumar did his part convincingly, the lack of proper character establishment and a few unconvincing portions comes as a major defect.

Verdict: A safety alert!

Rating: 2.5/5