Venkatapuram

Any girl in this society can feel safe only when male chauvinists realise and open their eyes beyond doubt. Many young women are being subjected to sexual harassment at work place, at secluded places and whereever, however possible. This kind of exploitation of women socially, economically and physically at every stage. This story of Venkatapuram deals with that exact nature of the men and society.

Plot : In Vizag, a young pizza delivery boy Anand (Rahul) gets arrested for attempting a murder. An young girl Chaitra (Mahima Makwana) is reported dead on the beach. Inspector Durga Prasad (Ajay Ghosh) investigates the case and closes it for lack of proper evidence. After nine months, Anand comes out of the prison and eradicates an entire police station of Venkatahpuram. Why? What happened to Anand? Watch it on screen..

Performances : Rahul, Happy Days fame, after a series of flops went into hibernation and came back on screen with Venkatapuram. He shows dedication in building chiseled body structure and a six pack. But he looks completely clueless and quite gloomy in the character. He needs to take some good amount of acting classes and attend workshops to improve his skills. Mahima Makwana can go back to her serials as that is the industry she seriously belongs to as an actor. In films, less is more, in serials more is less.

Ajay Ghosh is good in his character and he does really well. But the writer let’s him down with a character laced with clichés and we feel deep sympathy for the actor as he has been typecast in similar kind of roles day in and out. Kasi Viswanath, Ajay shine in small roles but writing again disappoints us.

Technicalities : Cinematographer Sai Prakash Ummadisingu did try something in the name of creating a tone for the movie but heavy effects used by editor diluted most of his work. Also his night shots look completely bland and too dark with heavy DI work. He could not come up anything new and also failed in creating a good ambiance for the movie. Editor Madhu helped the director to further dilute the impact with his mindless use of heavy effects for shots that did not require such tone and tinge. He could have easily let few be but fails to edit the movie effectively. We have to thank him for restricting the run-time though.

Music by Acchu as far as songs go is very very good. Couple of songs ring in your head even though they were spoiled on screen. His background at times suits the mood and at times goes at its different tangent. Good BGM doesn’t mean good sound but the sound that suits the video. Hope he understands that. Venu Madikanti is the story writer, screenplay writer and director for this movie. His story is too old and his screenplay doesn’t have enough stuff to hold your interest. As far as direction goes, he lost half of the battle with his choice of actors and as for rest half, he lost it to his mediocre writing that overlooks many details. Well, any mystery thriller survives on well woven engaging narration of plot and twists. Here director lacks in writing a tight script.

Analysis : There are many films being made on sexual harassment faced by women with the inspiration of Nirbhaya and Jessica Lal cases. But in some of those well written movies, we could connect with the characters emotionally and it lacks here completely. Even the writing doesn’t allow us to invest in the movie as well. This is one of the bland attempts at creating a crime thriller if there is one.

Rating : 1.5/5