Saripodhaa Sanivaaram Movie Review

Telugu360 Rating: 3/5

Story:

As a teenager, Surya (Nani) was known for his violent reactions to injustice. Before she passed away, he promised his dying mother that he would control his anger, allowing himself to explode only one day a week—on Saturdays. Dayanand (SJ Surya) is a notorious CI in the city, and Koormanand (Murali Sharma) is his brother. Surya, disturbed by Dayanand’s atrocities, decides to take him on. Meanwhile, Surya’s childhood love Charulatha ( Priyanka Mohan) and Dayanand’s brother enter the story. The ensuing tangle between Surya, Dayanand, and Koormanand forms an intriguing triangular race.

Analysis:

Vivek Athreya, known for directing class films like Mental Madhilo, Brochevarevarura, and Ante Sundaraniki, has made his mass film debut with Saripodhaa Sanivaaram. Nani, typically known for his family-oriented roles, stars as the lead. The collaboration of these two filmmakers, both rooted in family-oriented cinema, has created unique expectations for this out-and-out mass entertainer. Nani’s introductory scenes are well-executed, though the pacing slows a bit before the antagonist, Dayanand, enters to pick up the momentum. Up until the interval, the film remains a decent watch. The post-interval block, lasting about 45 minutes, is racy and smart. However, the pre-climax episodes drag a bit, though the film wraps up on a satisfactory note with a strong climax.

Notably, the makers avoided including unnecessary songs, item numbers, or romantic tracks. There is only one montage song . The film is a 160-minute action drama without any duets.

Vivek Athreya cleverly used Murali Sharma’s habit of misjudgment to both entertain the audience and drive the story forward. The chapter titles representing key script elements— “Introduction,” “Twist,” “Conflict,” “Interval,” “Post Interval,” and “Ending” – add an interesting layer to the narrative.  His wit cannot go unnoticed in certain scenes.

The casting is one of the film’s highlights, with everyone excelling in their roles. Nani, SJ Surya, Murali Sharma, Saikumar, and Priyanka Mohan all appear comfortable and seem to have thoroughly enjoyed performing in the key scenes. S.J. Surya might have received a bit more screen time.

Jakes Bejoy background score is trendy.  Murali’s photography is Good.

On the downside, the film has a few dull moments in the first half, some predictable elements, and could benefit from trimming about 15 minutes, especially around the pre-climax.

Positives:

• Unique storyline
• Nani’s mass avatar and strong performance
• SJ Surya’s outstanding performance
• Vivek’s direction and clever screenplay
• Impressive background score
• Well-developed key characters

Negatives:

• Lengthy runtime
• First half has predictable scenes
• Flat narration in the first half and drag in pre-climax
• Sokulapalem sequences

Verdict:

‘Saripodaa Sanivaram’ is an action film but not your typical one..It has an average first half but a gripping second half with a unique storyline. Nani and SJ Surya shine with standout performances in this face-off themed film. Vivek Athreya delivers a smart screenplay with adequate wit and action,though the film suffers from a lengthy runtime that occasionally results in flat storytelling.  Overall, it’s a watchable action drama. Give it a try !

Telugu360 Rating: 3/5

Director:Vivek Athreya
Cinematography: Murali G.
Music: Jakes Bejoy
Producer:D. V. V. Danayya
Production:DVV Entertainment

Count “1992” as one of those films with its heart in the right place but its execution in the wrong space. Set on April 29, 1992, the day of the Rodney King verdict, this is a surprisingly uncomplicated film, one that attempts to balance its heist-thriller elements with its combustible racial milieu. It features Tyrese Gibson as a single father named Mercer, working to protect his teenage son Antoine (Christopher Ammanuel) from the surrounding violence only to upset an ensuing robbery led by Lowell (the late Ray Liotta) and his crew. There are shootouts, a car chase, some heroics and some hard life lessons—but this film isn’t breaking new ground on either the action or socio-political front.   

Director Ariel Vromen’s “1992” often plays like a significantly lesser mishmash of Kathryn Bigelow’s “Detroit” and John Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13.” It poses a one-night structure that puts to test the resolve of its Black protagonist to simply survive the night whether through brunt force or through pained civility. And while certain thrills can be had from its nuts and bolts construction, you’re left wanting this film to lessen its well-worn genre elements in deference to the difficult father-son dynamics it initially sells.   

Those dynamics, in an on-the-nose script written by Vromen and Sascha Penn, come in two forms. The first arises between Mercer and Antoine. The former was recently released from prison six months ago, and now he’s working on not going back by staying away from the gang he once ran with and by plying his trade as a maintenance worker in a plant. Mercer, of course, doesn’t want Antoine to follow in his footsteps. So he has the teen, despite Antoine’s charge that he’s being locked in a proverbial cage by his dad, to return directly home from school. The film’s other strained father-son relationship is Riggin Bigby (Scott Eastwood) and his father Lowell. It’s Riggin who thinks up a get-rich-quick scheme, proposing that Lowell’s gang rob Mercer’s plant where there happens to be $10 million worth of platinum—with the uprising associated with the Rodney King verdict providing the perfect cover for their plan. 

Of the two threads, it’s clear that Mercer and Antoine have a far more potent relationship. Through their eyes we are transported back to the hood films of the 1990s, where the potential for danger seems to rise higher around every corner. It’s here Mercer is still a local legend for his violent ways. In the film’s first half, Gibson remains stoic, as though he is afraid that any show of emotion will lead to trouble. The same could be said of his hunched posture, the way his body is swallowed up by the oversized jumpsuit he wears to work. This is a man attempting to change himself from the inside out. When Mercer’s acquiescence is thrown against Antoine’s fervent desire for revenge following the verdict, an enthralling explosiveness develops between the two. Unfortunately that energy is often undone by the film’s frank dialogue and blunt scenarios, such as a police barricaded roadblock that nearly goes wrong. 

That father-son relationship only leaves the other more wanting. We know that Riggin is tired of working for his dad and his band of petty criminals. He also wants to take his younger, sensitive brother away from Lowell. Beyond that the writing just sorta stops. There are very few scenes between Liotta and Eastwood, which admittedly, might have been out of Vromen’s hands. We’re not sure why Riggin hates Lowell and vise-versa. Nor do we get a sense of Lowell. Liotta is delivering his lines with confidence, but they don’t string together into a complete character. He is merely violent and heartless, and not much else. 

Fascinatingly, these two families do not immediately meet. In fact, Lowell and his crew are halfway done with their robbery, over halfway through the film, before Antoine and Mercer stumble onto their criminality. The film then becomes a fight for survival as Mercer and Antoine attempt to avoid Lowell’s wrath. Though the majority of the action happens in these scenes, the film, mysteriously, appears to slow down. There is no suspense to Mercer brawling with Lowell’s men. Maybe that’s because it’s all been thrown together at the last minute, casting away the pleasures of seeing rivalries and vendettas that have naturally been developed over the course of the picture? Or maybe it’s because the shooting of these sequences is fairly rudimentary?

In any case, “1992” doesn’t wear its genre elements well. It can also struggle in the edit too, such as the clumsy integration of archival footage from the Los Angeles uprising. Vromen can’t decide whether to show us those images via the television, whose broadcasts of the news often occupy the back of the composition or to show it as a documentary. The score also feels mismatched, opting for syncopated jazz music in a film that plays as far too sweaty and far too grimy for such precise percussion. 

And yet, it’s difficult to wholly disavow this film. There is an albeit obvious tension in two Black men avoiding these white criminals while in the film’s outer world white folks are steering clear of Black protestors. There is also a palpable anger felt by Mercer and Antoine that the film understands. And Liotta, in his final completed film, is a plus presence. You just wish all of those elements came together in a movie that had the ability to lean on its human components and find drama in their relationships rather than pushing them aside for lackluster set pieces in a conventional social picture.

Slingshot, 2024.

Directed by Mikael Håfström.
Starring Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, Emily Beecham, Tomer Capone, David Morrissey, Nikolett Barabas, Charlotta Lövgren, Mark Ebulue, and Harry Szovik.

SYNOPSIS:

An astronaut struggles to maintain his grip on reality aboard a possibly fatally compromised mission to Saturn’s moon, Titan.

On the surface, Mikael Håfström’s Slingshot is about a space mission to Saturn’s moon containing methane, which can be collected and used for a healthier Earth. None of that actually matters, as this is more of a setup for psychological games that not only revel in clichés but come in so much quantity that they instantly telegraph themselves from one to the next. The result is less having fun with the insanity and more laughing at it for falling in line to the next predictable swerve.

The script from R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker immediately reveals Casey Affleck’s astronaut John as an unreliable perspective for this story, emerging from a hibernation pod aboard a spaceship with an automated voice reminding him of the symptoms. The primary one to pay attention to here is confusion. This is a character device relied on to such an annoying effect that it mostly feels like cheating. Beyond a certain point, there is no reason to take anything we see here seriously; it’s all face-value BS, and our brains are hardwired into not believing any of it or assuming the opposite.

Working with Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne giving a stern and stellar performance that is unquestionably the best aspect of the movie) and a data/technological specialist named Nash (Tomer Capone, frequently overplaying his increasing paranoia that develops), their strategy to get near Saturn is to attempt a slingshot boost maneuver from Jupiter. The reasoning behind this is never explained, but presumably, it simply concerns Saturn being farther away from Earth. The details, or lack thereof, are the least of this film’s problems, and the title mostly feels like a metaphor for what it’s trying and failing to do to the audience with its mind games.

It turns out that during one of the hibernation phases, the spacecraft collided with an unidentified object and suffered some structural damage that technically could be fatal. Contradicting this, the computer systems still report that everything is intact and safe. However, the crew loses communications with mission overseers back in Houston.

From there, a difference of opinion breaks out with John (played with despondency and disorientation by Casey Affleck, which sometimes is taken too far and doesn’t feel right for the role) caught up in the middle of Nash, essentially encouraging a mutiny, paranoid that the ship is not stable enough to sustain a boost at such a speed, covering an extraordinary amount of distance between planets within minutes. Meanwhile, Captain Franks has the standard cold “complete the mission at any cost” tone. This film also wants viewers to know there is something else off about Captain Franks based on his behavior, which includes occasionally singing the lyrics “Please don’t let me be misunderstood.” As a result, much of the film becomes a waiting game for the first major twist to drop. It interjects a nightmare sequence and a body mutation hallucination bit, both feeling out of place and desperate attempts at keeping up engagement.

John also regularly hallucinates seeing his NASA program love interest, Zoe (Emily Beecham), on the ship, which the filmmakers use as opportunities to toss viewers into flashbacks depicting how they became close, various aspects of John’s backstory, and the one-sided nature of the relationship. He is infatuated with Zoe, upfront that his work will always come first, and seemingly closed off from relationship commitment and reciprocating love. 

It is undeniably clear that through all of the psychological mind games, Slingshot wants to say something about paranoia and anxiety not only concerning the mission but also what we project onto others regarding how they see us. There are also questions of duty and when it’s time to prioritize safety and, even more courageously, standing up to a shortsighted leader who could get everyone killed.

However, that is all artificial; the narrative gets lost in that series of twists without the self-awareness that Slingshot has long stopped feeling suspenseful. There are moments of intended clever dark humor, paling in comparison to the amount of unintentional hilarity. Put it this way: it’s practically impossible not to see the final rug-pull coming right before it happens. The anticipation is there for the wrong reasons; it elicits snickering.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

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