Who could have predicted that “Lethal Weapon” would turn out to be one of the most influential films ever made?

The film’s writer, Shane Black, probably guessed. He never lacked confidence. The original draft of “Lethal Weapon” included smart-alecky asides, like a description of a cliffside mansion as “the kind of house I’ll buy when this movie is a huge hit.” It was, and the result turbocharged the buddy action formula that powered a string of box office hits, from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “Uptown Saturday Night” through “48 HRS” and “Running Scared.” Mel Gibson’s long-haired, widowed, suicidal loner cop Martin Riggs gets partnered with Danny Glover’s older, wiser, more measured family man Roger Murtaugh. Although they start out hating each other, by the end each man has gained a new friend, and the once isolated Riggs is welcomed into the Murtaugh family.

The Prime Video movie “The Wrecking Crew” is another entry in that vein, complete with story beats familiar from Black’s first produced script (especially in the final half-hour) and an overall Blackesque vibe, especially in the dialogue. Dave Bautista plays the rock-solid family man, James Hale, a former Navy SEAL turned drill instructor who has a house near Honolulu, a beautiful and charming child psychologist wife, Leila (Roimata Fox), and two adorable kids. Jason Momoa plays the loose cannon partner, James’ half-brother Jonny, a long-haired, hard-drinking, impetuous cop on an Oklahoma reservation who is introduced getting dumped by his long-neglected girlfriend Valentina (Morena Baccarin) on her birthday. (When she asks Jonny if he knows what day it is, he pauses nervously, then guesses “Wednesday?”)

The brothers have been estranged for more than 20 years. But when their father, Walter, a sleazy private eye, gets killed in a hit-and-run accident while working a case in Honolulu, Jonny swallows his pride and flies to Hawaii for the funeral, setting up the inevitable reconciliation, plus lots of skillfully choreographed, sometimes slyly funny action sequences.

It’s all sprinkled with banter, some of it openly hostile, some profane and teasing but affectionate deep down, like stuff brothers would say to each other while roughhousing. Of course, the mystery turns out to be one more variant of “Chinatown,” involving a very sketchy real estate deal/land theft and intimations of a conspiracy that goes right to the top. Temuera Morrison plays Hawaii’s fictional governor, Peter Mahoe, who, of course, is part of the conspiracy. A governor doesn’t show up at the funeral of a bottom-feeding private detective that even his sons loathed unless he’s connected to the main story and the family guiding us through it.

Claes Bang plays real estate mogul Marcus Robichaux, an heir to a sugar fortune who hopes to get even richer from his crimes. Naturally, there’s a small army of security guys and henchmen for the brothers to punch, shoot, stab, and incinerate—a mix of city-roaming Yakuza foot soldiers (a band of whom attacked Jonny in Oklahoma, demanding a thumb drive his dad supposedly sent him) and a squad of gym-burly Caucasian dudes with quasi-military haircuts. An yes, there’s weird, repulsive, deranged chief henchman, Nakamura (Miyavi), a reptilian dandy who snorts cocaine off a drink tray at one of Robichaux’s glammed-out parties, then taunts James, who is posing as a caterer, right to his face.

What makes “The Wrecking Crew” worth seeing is what the cast and filmmakers do with the material. Simply put, this movie is better than its synopsis suggests, though not good enough to entirely overcome the familiarity of the component parts and the alternately jokey and sentimental tone (which is harder to pull off than studio executives seem to think). More so than “Lethal Weapon,” this evokes two less successful (yet still much-loved) Shane Black movies, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Nice Guys.” Some of the action is ludicrous, but most of it is modestly scaled. And the characters are written and performed in a way that makes them recognizably human, even though the Hale brothers are, to quote Stephen Root‘s cop character, “two guys who look like they eat steroid pancakes for breakfast.”

Momoa and Bautista are two of the best actors to become movie stars by passing through the superhero factory, and they get a chance to prove that here, while still delivering what most viewers will expect: chases, shootouts, explosions, frat-house insults, moments of manly vulnerability, and a scene where the brothers get into a huge brawl. The leads are convincing as a straightlaced but too-tightly wound older brother with a stable home life and a flamboyantly self-destructive younger sibling whose adulthood has been defined by rage at the horrors visited upon the brothers in their youth (including the old man’s affairs, one of which produced Jonny). Jonny has PTSD for sure, and it seems a safe bet that James has a touch as well.

It’s an indicator of the movie’s specialness that the most impressive scene isn’t the brother-on-brother street fight in pouring rain, but the aftermath when they sit together on the pavement, bruised and bloody, and talk about the sources of their pain. Runner-up is the moment when the brothers embrace at the end of their mission, beaten and spent, and the mask of adulthood falls away, revealing the scared little boy who needed more love than he got and the older brother who failed to provide it.

Jonathan Tropper, who adapted “This is Where I Leave You” and co-created the action series “Banshee” and “Warrior,” wrote the script, which has more nuance and depth than you’d expect in a movie where trucks and cars fly through the air before exploding. It has a binding theme, forgiveness, and is filled with journalistic details of modern Hawaiian culture, locating the initial killing in a Honolulu neighborhood where such things have happened in real life; sending the brothers to the Hawaiian Home Land, which is stewarded under the Aha Moku system of resource management; reserving soundtrack slots for Indigenous music (like Ka’Ikena’s “Brains”); and peppering conversations with local idioms and slang. Jonny calls another character a squid, out-of-state speculators are referred to as “haole,” and the family name Hale is pronounced “HALL-ay” and translates as “home.”

Indeed, the entire movie is a tribute to the specifics of distinct cultures and the richness of a society that brings them together, while acknowledging that the fusion was forced by colonialism and crony capitalism, and that the conquered have justified resentments over that. The cast is filled with actual Hawaiians, especially Indigenous actors, including Momoa, who is half Native Hawaiian. (Bautista is Greek-Filipino, but should be welcomed under the Pacino as Latino Act of 1983) Even Baccarin gets to honor her own roots; half-Brazilian, she briefly speaks Portuguese, setting up another good joke on Jonny.

Director Angel Manuel Soto, who came to Hollywood by way of San Juan, Puerto Rico, has made three films in a row (“Charm City Kings,” “Blue Beetle,” and this one) that are culturally specific within genres that haven’t traditionally been welcoming to people like him. He’s good at everything the movie requires, including quiet moments of character development that you don’t normally find here. Although it looks backward to previous Hollywood hits, in all the ways that count, this movie is the future.

Jeff Hanna, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder and de facto leader, is tucked into a nondescript booth at El Palenque, a 30-years-plus local restaurant in a Nashville strip mall, talking about “Nashville Skyline,” a pensive track from their EP, “Night After Night.” The family-owned Mexican restaurant is the kind of place he’s gravitated toward since starting a jug band with friends in Long Beach before migrating to Los Angeles’ folk/rock scene.

Threaded with fiddle, piano and lead vocal by his son Jaime, “Nashville Skyline” is an elegy for Nashville’s rapacious gentrification as well as a love lost to time. The metaphor isn’t lost on the elder Hanna, who recognizes what’s been lost with a dignity and sweetness.

“It’s more reflective,” he allows. “But [capturing moments is] what we do best.”

For the dark-haired 78-year-old, this scene’s played out countless times across a career that’s spanned a number of genres related to folk, pop and country: meeting a journalist to talk about the band’s singular brand of American music. Yet little about the NGDB’s sound has changed across six decades.

Beyond “Mr. Bojangles,” written by Jerry Jeff Walker, and “The House at Pooh Corner,” written by Kenny Loggins, the regulars of the Troudadour/Ash Grove clubs would have pop success as the ‘70s became the ‘80s with “Make a Little Magic,” featuring Nicolette Larson, and “Viola! An American Dream,” with vocals from Linda Ronstadt. But it was the multi-generational and genre-bridging Grammy-nominated “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” recorded with Nashville royalty Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter and Earl Scruggs among many others, that grounded the band’s future as a mainstream country act in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as well as what’s become Americana.

“Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 2” (1989) and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 3” (2004) continued that trend. Both brought home Grammys, while featuring Rosanne Cash and John Hiatt, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Tom Petty, Randy Scruggs, John Prine, Bruce Hornsby, Dwight Yoakam and Hanna’s son Jaime. Also, a wunderkind dobro player named Jerry Douglas.

Hanna talks animatedly about Douglas’ production on their five-song EP: “Like a lot of guys who came up in the second wave of bluegrass after Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Jerry’s part of a progressive musical heritage with New Grass Revival, Tony Rice and New South where genre- and cultural-crossing makes you super open-minded, so what we do is very fluid for him.”

The Grammy-winning dobro icon/master — Douglas receives name-billing as part of Alison Krauss & Union Station — has history with the Dirt Band. Beyond playing on “Long Hard Road,” their first country No. 1, Douglas has loved their music since “seeing them in Mole Lake, Wisconsin, at a festival on an Indian Reservation.”

“It was 1973, I was 19 and playing with the Country Gentlemen. Everybody was smoking; there was even a paraquat-testing booth. The Vietnam War was happening. But ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ was out; they had Vassar Clements playing with them — and the honesty of their music stuck out.”

That honesty and being in the moment carried the Dirt Band across cultural upheavals, changing technology and tastes by allowing songs and their sheer joy of playing to define a career marked by over 100 shows a year, scattered recorded projects that featured songs by Marshall Crenshaw, Steve Goodman, Bruce Springsteen and 2022’s “Dirt Does Dylan.”

“I feel really good about ‘Night After Night ‘as a moment in time,” Hanna says. “It’s a good combination of what we do, where we are. It’s a little reflective, but I love the way the songs flow together … and as much as I wanted to be (Don) Henley in ’75, I made my peace with that for something that’s truer.”

Truer means blending founder Jimmie Fadden (drummer/writer/harmonica), 40-years-plus member Bob Carpenter (keyboards/vocals) and longtime pal Jim Photoglo (bass/vocals) with stand-out next-gen players multi-instrumentalist Ross Holmes (Mumford + Sons, Bruce Hornsby) and Hanna’s son, guitarist/vocalist Jaime (the Mavericks, Gary Allen). Hanna says, “Jaime’s one of my best friends in the world and we share a lot of music, but his chops are substantial. I sometimes look over, hearing him play what were my solos and smile. He’s got the three T’s in electric guitar: tone, taste and timing.”

Beyond the EP’s romping Paul Kennerly/Daniel Tashian title track ruminating on love lost’s impact, a poignant sense of reckoning with the passage of time and loss of places that matter is tempered with grace and acceptance. Featuring prominent acoustic guitar picking, Fadden’s signature harmonica and lyrics stained with philosophical nostalgia, the project gilds the band’s current Farewell Tour celebrating 60 years of music-making that rooted when “Buy for Me the Rain” became a regional Los Angeles hit.

Douglas concurs about the fingers-on-strings magic. “We recorded all this at Oceanway, sitting in a circle, running the songs and looking at each other. It’s a little more organic than some projects; we didn’t do 20 takes, but created dynamics … I’ve played music my whole life, and this was one endorphin rush after another.”

That rush can’t be machined or algorithmed. Both Country Music Hall of Fame Chief Executive Kyle Young and Americana Music Assn. Executive Director Jed Hilly point to the Dirt Band as a groundbreaking influence.

Young enthuses, “I grew up in Nashville, and it took them to show me Nashville’s musical history and heritage; I was listening to everything but country. That first ‘Circle,’ you can’t overemphasize its impact enough,” while Hilly raves, “They were legendary when I was 10 years old in Vermont, going to the Craftsberry Fiddle and Banjo Contest! It was Neil Young’s ‘Harvest,’ [Grateful Dead’s ‘Working Man’s Dead,’ Doc Watson and ‘Circle.’]”

Hilly continues, “I’ve heard T Bone Burnett talk about ‘Oh Brother,’ how great music cuts through. But the Dirt Band? They were pivotal, like John Prine, who just made his music … reaching into the past, but bringing it to the present so it’s very current. And the happiness onstage? No one’s like them.”

Advertisement

And there’s Darius Rucker, a contemporary country star and leader of ubiquitous ‘90s rock/roots Hootie & the Blowfish, who emailed, “I learned so much about the true roots of country and how to apply it when we started making records in college.

“They were a great pop band, and ‘Circle’ was such an important moment for bringing old-school country and bluegrass artists — Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, and Merle Travis — into the room with ‘hippie kids’ … It allowed for country and California rock to come together. “

Laughing when the praise is shared, Hanna demurs. “The amount of eye rolls you get from saying ‘Farewell Tour,’ because it’s so abused. But the rigors of touring, especially with travel the way it is … Fadden’s always been one to remind us how grateful we are when it’s three hours of sleep, the food choices aren’t so good and something’s lost, because we are.

“We’ve never stopped making music,” Hanna continues. “Sometimes we were the Toot Uncommons with Steve Martin, or playing as Linda Ronstadt’s back-up band for a minute, but it was always great music. Even when record company people would suggest something to make us ‘cool with the kids,’ we knew, and don’t have too many cringe moments.

“With ‘Night After Night,’ I got to co-write most of this record with my son, my wife (Nashville Songwriter Hall of Famer Matraca Berg) and friends like Mac McAnally. Jaime brought us some cool songs, too. Everybody played great. We had the same kind of fun we did when we started. Sixty years in, what more is there?”

Movie Name :  Annagaru Vostaru
Streaming Date : Jan 28, 2026
Streaming Platform : Amazon Prime Video
123telugu.com Rating : 2.5/5
Starring : Karthi, Krithi Shetty, Sathyaraj, Rajkiran, Anand Raj, Shilpa Manjunath and Others
Director : Nalan Kumarasamy
Producer : K.E.Gnanavelraja
Music Director : Santhosh Narayanan
Cinematographer  : George C. Williams Isc
Editor : Vetre Krishnan

Related Links : Trailer

Karthi’s Pongal release Vaa Vaathiyaar has shockingly arrived on Amazon Prime Video within two weeks of its theatrical release. What’s even more startling is that the Telugu dubbed version, Annagaru Vostaru, skipped the theatrical release and headed to OTT directly. Let’s see how the movie is.

Story:

Set in a fictional place, Ramarao (Karthi) is born at the exact time of Sr. NTR’s death. His grandfather (Rajkiran), a devoted fan of Sr. NTR, firmly believes Ramarao to be his idol’s reincarnation and raises him with strong moral values.

However, as Ramarao grows up and becomes a cop, he chooses the opposite path. Ramarao gets suspended after threatening a movie producer for a bribe. One day, his grandfather learns about Ramarao’s true nature, leading to a life-changing situation for the protagonist. What happens next forms the crux of the story.

Plus Points:

The movie has a very interesting idea that instantly grabs our attention. What if an iconic star, worshipped by people like a demigod, comes back to deal with evil forces and becomes the saviour of the masses? This is the core idea on which Annagaru Vostaru is based.

Karthi is one of those rare actors who never goes wrong with his performances, even when the films themselves aren’t entirely satisfactory. He performs to the tee and tries his best to hold the film together with his charismatic screen presence. Some moments in the first half are engaging, and the interval episode leaves a fairly good impact.

Minus Points:

A good concept alone isn’t enough to make a successful film. There needs to be a gripping screenplay to keep the audience hooked, and this is where Annagaru Vostaru falters. The narration is largely underwhelming due to the lack of a proper structure. The characters, especially the antagonists and the female lead, aren’t introduced properly.

As a result, it becomes difficult to connect with the proceedings, despite Karthi giving it his all. The second half, in particular, leaves a lot to be desired. The narrative turns repetitive and predictable, and by the time the film reaches the climax, it runs out of steam. Apart from Karthi, the rest of the cast doesn’t get scope to shine.

Additionally, there is very little chance for the film to work with Telugu audiences. OTT platforms lately have been releasing only a single version of multilingual films, swapping audio tracks for the same visual file. While this strategy may work for some films, it defeats the very purpose of movies like Vaa Vaathiyaar/Annagaru Vostaru.

We are told about NTR in the dialogues, but what we see on screen is MGR, clearly meant for Tamil audiences, making the overall experience underwhelming. It is surprising that a platform like Prime Video did not consider this crucial aspect.

Technical Aspects:

Music composed by Santosh Narayanan turns out to be one of the weakest links of Annagaru Vostaru. Not even a single song is catchy, and the background score, which was expected to be quirky, largely misses the mark. George C. Williams’ cinematography is good, and the production values are neat. However, the editing could have been much better.

Director Nalan Kumarasamy, who earlier delivered an impressive film like Soodhu Kavvum, comes up with a fascinating idea for Annagaru Vostaru, but his screenplay is ineffective and uneven. It is disappointing to see a good idea not reach its full potential, and Annagaru Vostaru unfortunately falls into that category.

Verdict:

On the whole, Annagaru Vostaru (Vaa Vaathiyaar) has an interesting premise, but due to its underwhelming screenplay, the film fails to leave the desired impact. Karthi shines as Ramarao, brilliantly portraying a cinematic, Robin Hood–esque superhero, but the narration by director Nalan Kumarasamy doesn’t pack a punch. While a few moments in the first half are decent, the second half turns tiresome due to repetition. Hence, Annagaru Vostaru ends up being far from satisfactory.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.5/5
Reviewed by 123telugu Team