Dr. Jey Shrawan Aerrola
DISCLAIMER: I don’t intend to write a polemic or spew vitriol about this or any other film that I deep dive into, in fact, it’s the opposite, it’s the love of cinema that inspires me to write in such great detail and it’s that very love, especially towards our Telugu cinema that compelled me to scrutinize our films, especially the screenplay, on a microscopic level. Y’all better buckle up, this is going to be a long piece.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Like many of you stuck at home & trying not to let the banality of what our lives have become get to you, I too was clamouring for some true blue Telugu content to watch (A man can only take so many Malayalam movies) & out comes “V”, touted as a Neo-noir film, it’s Written & Directed by Mr. Indraganti Mohan Krishna & it stars Mr. Nani, Mr. Sudheer, Ms. Nivetha Thomas, Ms. Aditi Rao Hydari and many more familiar faces.
Mr Indraganti comes across like a man of erudition, as evidenced by him waxing lyricals about everything from History of Antiquity to Shakespeare to Truffaut to Dogme 95 & add to that his graduation from a film school (one of the rare few in present working directors in TFI) & his oeuvre, so When he announced that this movie would be a Neo-noir thriller, my interest was naturally piqued & my expectations soared. so let’s see what Mr.Indraganti has in store for us this time around.
It’s widely believed that there are only Seven types of stories to be told & that every story that had to be written or in case of a cinema, put on screen, has been done already, so the only thing that is left to do for a writer/Director is how does he/she put his/her own spin on it & tell the same old story in a refreshing manner & it gives me no joy to tell you that Mr.Indraganti’s writing falters at every possible level.
Mr.Indraganti took the tried & tested formula of Revenge sops & repackaged it as a “Cat & Mouse game” between the two leading men. The idea in & itself isn’t a bad one, handled properly it had the potential to be a riveting thriller but what we get instead is a Vapid excuse for a thriller with half baked plot & appallingly underdeveloped characters. Let’s go through the plethora of things that went wrong with this film.
CASTING : Let’s start with addressing the Elephant in the room, Casting. Jack Reacher, the protagonist in the eponymous series of novels by Lee Child is a 6’3″ hulking menace of a figure but when they cast 5’7″ Tom Cruise as Jack there was an outrage among the fans of the books, but Mr.Cruise with his sheer physicality & acting prowess was able to overcome the prejudice & proved that it’s not the height that makes the character pop on screen but how an actor embodies the role (which entails the various prep the role requires one to undergo). The reason why I shared that anecdote is because the character portrayed by Mr. Nani in “V” is supposed to be this agent of carnage & a veteran of the Special forces in the army just like Jack & like Mr.Cruise , Mr.Nani also stands at 5’6 but I’m afraid the similarities end there. Mr. Nani’s lack of imposing screen presence juxtaposed with his supposed feats of “badassery” combined with the cheesy one liners are jarring at best & unintentionally funny at worse. At no point was I convinced that this character was capable of taking down men twice his size with such ease. The worst part was, to compensate his lack of screen presence as this unstoppable Juggernaut, Mr. Nani chose to channel his “badassery” through the cadence of his voice, which has this silly baritone reminiscent of the macho heroes in 80’s B-movies of Hollywood. This combined with the appallingly underdeveloped character of Mr. Nani just took me out of the movie. Mr. Nani is a very good actor with an affable screen presence but action isn’t his forte, it’s not because he’s vertically challenged but because he didn’t put in the required work to mold himself into looking the part. Mr. Aamir Khan in his 50’s put on 20 pounds of muscle over a course of 18 months to play a wrestler in”Dangal” & Mr.Nani twirled his mustache & changed the color of his eyes to convey that he’s a “Badass” who can take down an assortment of goons without even breaking a sweat. Why do Telugu audience deserve any less of a commitment or dedication from their much revered screen idols to look the part?
CHARACTERS : There is a common misconception that big budget cinemas are primarily about the spectacle, flash & bang but that is not the case in most of the instances, it’s about the characters that inhabit that world. The characters are the foundation upon which the spectacle is built. If the characters are not worth rooting for, it doesn’t matter how flashy the movie is, it will implode & that’s what happened with “V”. There isn’t even one single character which was worth following. let’s talk about the big four in the movie.
1 – NANI – Playing the eponymous Vishnu, his character needed to be front & center of the film as it’s his plight that we should latch on to if we were to invest in the film. What we get here is a rehash of the umpteen number of archetypes that we’ve been bombarded with all over the years. There’s nothing wrong with selecting an archetype to be your lead but what’s problematic is the lack of nuance in the characterization. We don’t know anything about Vishnu except for the fact that he’s not to be trifled with & he loves his wife dearly. Some might argue saying that in a thriller one can’t expect any character arcs, which is valid but Vishnu’s character falls short of his one & only job in the film, to provide us with the thrills. There is another misconception in regards to what exactly a thriller is. Many think it’s the twists & turns in the course of the story, that is a very simplistic way to look at the genre, a thrillers primary job is create a sense of foreboding among the viewers by taking us to our wits end while depicting the journey of the lead or in the case of “V” the vengeance Vishnu decides to unleash.
Over the course of the movie, there isn’t even a single moment which takes us to the edge of the seat, Vishnu accomplishes every task at hand with superhuman ease. No task is too daunting for Vishnu, there is no sense of anticipation or doubt that whether he’d be able to pull off his task or not. If there is no doubt, there is no drama, no drama no thrill, that’s why the movie failed to create any sort of intrigue irt Vishnu’s character because we already know that he will get what he wants, then why even bother watching?
2 – SUDHEER- An active protagonist is someone who drives the story, whose decisions change the course of the movie. A passive character is someone who just reacts to what the plot does to him, he doesn’t affect the story in any way whatsoever. Mr.Sudheer’s Aditya has to be one of the most passively written lead characters to be put on screen in recent times. He’s just there to bear witness to Vishnu’s trail of destruction. He is a stereotypical straight man to Vishnu’s anti-hero. Aditya’s single job in the movie is to make things difficult for Vishnu & he fails at this spectacularly. This character is so incompetent that nothing he does nudges the story in a different direction or forces Vishnu to recalibrate his strategy, everything goes as smoothly as Vishnu planned for irrespective of what Aditya does & that isn’t a testament to Vishnu’s efficacy but a reflection of Aditya’s lack of proactiveness. Imagine if Aditya’s character were to preempt Vishnu’s next attack & intercepts Vishnu, this would turn the tables on vishnu & would force him out of his comfort zone & coerce his hand into doing something Vishnu wouldn’t normally do & now, the hunter becomes the hunted. This would not only make these characters seem more compelling but would add much needed drama, tension & pace to the proceedings but what we get is a bland police procedural masquerading as a “versus” film. Also Dcp Satya’s character could’ve been perfectly used to make things harder for Aditya by using Satya to hamper Aditya’s investigation at every turn, now Aditya has to wage battle at two fronts, to catch Vishnu but also to stave off a jealous colleague who’s hell bent on making sure Aditya fails, this creates conflict & adds to the drama but sadly we don’t get anything of that sorts even remotely despite DCP Satya being set up to be the wrench in Aditya’s gears.
3 – Nivetha Thomas- Sighhh! do I even need to elaborate on the futility of this character? take her out of the movie & nothing would change whatsoever. That’s how pointless her character is.
4 – Aditi Rao Hydari- aka “Every dying heroine in every Telugu movie ever”, this character is a walking talking stereotype. conveniently orphan? check, doting wife? check, benevolent & beautiful? check. lives & dies only so that the hero can have a purpose? check. I’m not against a good’ole revenge drama but what bothers me is the way this revenge is setup. The character of Ayesha is shoehorned in just so that Vishnu can fill the run time of the cinema by having three more targets to kill. If you observe, except for KK (the gangster from Mumbai) who killed Saheba & Prasad who lead KK to Ayesha and inadvertently to Saheba, Vishnu has no reason to kill the other three targets except for his dying wife’s last wish. Mr.Indraganti who has so much disdain (rightfully so) for the tropes of a commercial cinema, based the entire film’s premise around one of the most cringiest trope of them all, avenging a dying wife & fulfilling her last wish. Saheba is less of a character & more of a vessel for cringe & plot convenience.
SCREENPLAY – As dismal as are the above mentioned attributes, the biggest culprit for the film’s failure to connect with the audience lies with the lackluster screenplay . I was dismayed to see this kind of an outdated screenplay from Mr.Indraganti. There were instances where I had to pause to double check if what i’m watching was actually shot in 2019 or shot in 2006 (it was when Mr.Indraganti wrote his first draft of this screenplay). The Lion half of the premise of the movie rests on the assumption that Vishnu believes that Aditya is also a part of the conspiracy that cost the life of his wife. An assumption which can be EASILY quelled had Vishnu done a little research on Aditya. such superfluous & coincidental plots are things of the yore. The thing that irked me so much so that I almost gave up on watching the movie altogether was the silly & whimsical wager Aditya & Vishnu get into IE the whole concept of Aditya resigning if he fails to catch him. What career policeman would put his entire repute & career on line willingly & with out any diligence for a two bit lowlife who only committed one homicide so far? this whole plot point is so farcical & exists solely to artificially raise some personal stakes for Adithya. How does it even matter if Aditya stays in the force or not? Aditya’s resignation adds nothing to the plot, it’s there just for the sake of being there. I’m sorry but that’s not how stakes in films work.
— Take a look at the interval, it sets up this intrigue (an overstatement) that Vishnu might have something to do with Aditya’s past ergo revealing an unknown facets of both Aditya’s & Vishnu’s character & in turn making the stakes actually personal for both of them . An argument can be made that it’s a cliched hook but what we actually got instead is incoherent & just plain dumb, so I’d rather prefer a cliche in such circumstances. Vishnu literally gives Aditya a clue to know about his past just for the sake of letting Aditya know about his past. This move doesn’t lead into an elaborate scheme or change the story in any form or manner or serve any other purpose. Now if I were a vigilante killer out to avenge my loved one, I’d prefer to do it under the radar, why would I jeopardize my own mission by leaking information about my past to the very officer who’s hot on my tail & that too just for the sake of it with out achieving anything in return? if I’m going to risk exposing my identity I should do it for something precious in return but to just rat on myself for the sake of it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It is from this point Aditya further gets demoted from being a passive player to a stand-in for the audience & Aditya’s aim goes from catching Vishnu to becoming an outlet for exposition. Let’s look at the way the other two flashbacks are revealed. Flashbacks are nothing but exposition & exposition is just a fancy word for information dump, but they’re sometimes unavoidable, so if you as a screenwriter are forced to write a flashback make sure you write it in such a way that the person getting this information is the one who is affected the most emotionally & can alter the course of the story with the new information at hand but what happens in “V”? polar opposite. In the case of Ramani , Imagine that instead of Aditya, it’s Vishnu who gets to know about this conspiracy first hand straight from Ramani? (ofcourse if that’s the case then this scene should come in the first act) & it would create a clear sense of purpose for Vishnu, at this point people might argue that by giving out the reason why Vishnu is after these people we’d risk losing intrigue & to them I say, nay. why? if you see, Ramani never tells anything about Saheba, so there will still be enough intrigue left as to how Aditi rao’s character would fit into the story & most importantly it would act as a misdirection as we’d be lead to believe that Vishnu is out there to avenge Ayesha which would make us actually look forward to the denouement because we still don’t know what exactly happened to Saheba.
Now let’s look the last flashback aka Denouement. At this point the movie was at rock bottom & just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Mr.Indraganti hits us with a pointless denouement. It’s here we learn about the fate of Saheba. But all I could think of is, why should I care? because at this point we’ve been already told that Saheba is dead & every bad guy responsible for it has been dealt with, at this point anyone can piece together what the denouement would be. It’s not even that lackadaisical execution that bugged me the most, what baffled me is how Mr.Indraganti chose to reveal the death of Saheba to Vishnu. Mr.Indraganti showed Saheba’s death as an after thought & as a montage, where we’re asked to take Vishnu’s grief of losing the love of his life at face value . We were never even allowed to experience or feel what Vishnu actually went through upon learning about the death of Saheba save for few shots of him crying & a voice over. But instead of that we get another verbose exposition, as I said earlier, Aditya is a mere stand-in for the audience.
Mr.Indraganti confused exposition with story telling, the former lets us merely understand the information while the latter wraps the same information in emotion & makes us care about it so that we internalize that information as having a value or an emotional impact.
I expected a lot more from Mr.Indraganti especially given the talent (both on & off screen) involved & deep pockets. This only goes to show again how important a screenplay is to cinema. Many people are under the misconception that having read a lot of literary fiction or having written some Novels would by default give them the ability to translate those skills to cinema. Screenplay is a different beast altogether with its own unique set of rules in story telling. case in point, The great novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby) tried his hand at screenwriting & failed miserably. So immerse yourself in movies & educate yourself with all the rules & conventions of screenwriting so that you can break them at your own leisure.
