1Nenokkadine brings a star actor and a star director together. The
hype and hoopla are at maximum as both the actor and director coming after
giving respective hits in the form of SVSC and 100% love. The makers of the
movie have been preparing the audience to accept that the movie is different
from the regular masala and belongs to psychological thriller genre. The
trailer released few weeks before the actual release of the movie has just
upped the ante a little more.
1Nenokkadine starts with Gautham (Mahesh Babu) who plays a
rockstar, confessing to police that he killed three people who have killed his
parents. Only for the police to realize that he was fighting shadows and has
not killed anyone. We come to know that he has a mental disorder in that he
imagines people who killed his parents and they don't really exist. There are
lot of questions that arise like were his parents killed? The persons who he
thinks he killed really exist? Did he really kill anyone?
The premise is interesting and gains our attention .The difficult
part for the director here is that many questions that arises during the first
half has to be solved convincingly. There are several loose threads during the
first half that the director manages to tie them properly and convincingly by
the end of the film. The tone of the film is dark and little edgy that helps
the film as it’s a thriller. This psychological thriller cum revenge movie
works well for what it is. It plays with your mind. There are abundant twists
and turns that are quite cleverly handled. The mystery is laid throughout the
flick that keeps the intrigue value. The only problem was that length of the
movie.15-20 mins trimming would bring in the edge of the seat feel. After the
complex first half, second half takes routine revenge drama but the twists and
turns inserted makes it an engrossing watch.
The pacing of the movie is liberal and slow at times that is
needed for us to understand the psyche of the lead character. The action
sequences are loaded from the start to the end. To say the stunts are on par
with big ticket Hollywood flick is no exaggeration. But the problem here in the
first half is that some of the action/fights seems forced and it harms the
storytelling instead of maintaining interest and is implausible. Another
problem I felt was that 'amma-naana' sentiment went little overboard towards
the end .It only slowed the pace of the movie and should have been taken care
of. May be director must have used it to connect with the masses more and he
also commercialized to some extent by adding an item number and 4 songs. Though
they didn't distract much but could have been avoided. Good thing is director
steered away from unnecessary comedy tracks, punch dialogues etc that would
have ruined the film completely. There are many scenes that are brilliant
especially the interval scene which is gold.
Mahesh Babu knocks it out of the park with his performance. He is
brilliant as the vulnerable rockstar. He is leaner and fitter that is required
for the physically challenging action sequences. He managed to take the whole
film on his shoulders and delivered convincingly. He is a treat to watch and
sure to send his fans into frenzy. The female lead played by debutante Kriti Sonan
has performed pretty well and is here to stay. She does have an important role
in the first half while she is almost invisible in second half as Mahesh takes
the center stage. While others like Sayaji Shinde, Pradeep Rawat, Kelly Dorji,
Naseer have small but important roles .Mahesh's son Gautham plays the young
Mahesh Babu and does a decent job.
Sukumar as always taken the responsibility as a director, story,
screenplay and dialogues. He is has done justice to all the roles. His taking
is brilliant and executing the scenes like interval scene or photography scene.
He is always known for his creative scenes and has a good imagination. I
particularly liked the scene where young Gautham draws a female picture on
ground and sleeps on the picture imagining his mother. In all Sukumar's films
lead character is either narcissistic, extreme obsessive or psychological
disorder with negativeness in the character in first half and tames them down
in the second half. Similarly he follows them in this movie as lead character
here has suffers from paracosm. Sukumar has taken a path that is similar to
many Hollywood thriller genre. Screenplay is where Sukumar excels here. It is a
multi-layered screenplay that he handles it pretty well. There is urbanity and
style in his taking. Sukumar and Mahesh complement each other well and it shows
on the screen.
The cinematography is top class. Ratnavelu who handled it does a
fantastic job. The way he shot in Goa, Belfast and London is amazing. Never
seen Goa captured so vibrantly. His visuals capture the mood quite good. The
music by DeviSriPrasad is terrific and complements well with the tone of the
genre excellently. The songs are good but the back ground score is where he
gets the brownie points. Technically the movie is superb. The bournesque action
sequence are great but as said before some of them could have been cut off.
Editing by Kartika Srinivas does a decent job. All technicians have done a good
job to make the film look elegant and stylish.
1Nenokadine is an intelligent thriller and different from the
regular big star movies. Kudos to Mahesh, Sukumar and the producers to make a
big budget film that is almost void of any commercial elements and sticking
honestly to the script. Go for it. Good bang for your buck.
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