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 

After a 14-year hiatus during which he focused on directing television and acting, Jay Duplass made a welcome return to features in 2025 with The Baltimorons, a gentle May-December romance with an After Hours vibe and an unassuming charm that sneaks up on you like a surprise hug. I wish See You When I See You had a similar effect, but despite its sincerity and the raw pain of shattering real-life experience that infuses it, this feels like a knockoff struck from the template of a thousand bittersweet, funny-sad indie grief dramas branded with the old-school Sundance stamp.

Dysfunctional family whose members seem to have forgotten how to communicate? Check. Belabored metaphor that never adds up to much (in this case a sage grouse at risk of extinction)? Check. Surreally stylized flourishes that are both awkwardly realized and inorganic to the prevailing mood and style? Check. Random nostalgic nods to ‘90s bands? Check. Treasured childhood memory tarnished by soul-crushing trauma? Check. Tinkly piano score poised to underline every emotional beat? Check. The list could go on.

All this is a shame since first-time screenwriter Adam Cayton-Holland, adapting his 2018 memoir Tragedy Plus Time, is clearly drawing from a very personal well in depicting with candor the spiraling chaos of a young comedy writer as he struggles to move forward after his beloved younger sister’s suicide. The authenticity of the writer-protagonist’s feelings is undermined by the banal familiarity of a specific indie-film model.

It’s doubly regrettable because Cooper Raiff pours a ton of heart and humor, along with PTSD, into the author’s stand-in, Aaron Whistler. He’s likable and funny, and even when the character is pushing people away like a flailing mess, he never forfeits the audience’s compassion.

Duplass could not have wished for better preparation for material of this nature than his work as producer and director of six episodes — including the pilot — of HBO’s sublime Bridget Everett series Somebody Somewhere. That series started from a similar place, with a central character trying to regain her footing after the shattering loss of a sibling and tending to deflect her sorrow with humor. Every single member of the ensemble felt fully lived-in and relatable, something that can be said for only some of the principal roles here.

It’s been two months since Leah (Kaitlyn Dever) took her own life and her devastated family has still not been able to agree on funeral arrangements — if they are to have one at all. The urn containing her ashes sits conspicuously on the mantlepiece in her parents’ loveless bedroom.

Leah’s mother Page (Hope Davis) has become closed-off and sour, doing her best to ignore her own grave health situation; her husband Robert (David Duchovny) pours himself into his work as a civil rights attorney, avoiding the subject of Leah; their other daughter Emily (Lucy Boynton), who has her own young son to care for, urges Aaron to see a therapist and goes from impatience to anger at the extent to which his grief has hijacked everyone else’s loss. Aaron and Leah were always members of a private club from which Emily felt excluded.

A big part of Aaron’s trauma is that he was the one who found his little sister’s body; when he is forced, after a DUI charge, to sign up for a mental health diversion program, he’s uncooperative and hostile with the therapist, who tells him nothing he didn’t already know. Later, when he finds an empathetic therapist with whom he connects (Poorna Jagannathan), Aaron initially remains blocked, only able to revisit the night he found Leah dead up to a point.

Raiff is very good in these scenes, which makes it frustrating that the memory flashes throughout of time spent with Leah are so clunky and obvious. Dever is always a compelling presence, but Leah seems more like a bundle of exposed nerve endings than a real person — the dangerous, out-of-control highs, the precipitous lows, the psych ward stints. The worst part, though, is a thuddingly literal device so poorly handled it yanks you out of the movie every time — a hole opens up in the ceiling or sky at a certain point in Aaron’s recollections, and Leah is sucked up into the atmosphere.

There are sweet interludes when Aaron reconnects with his girlfriend Camila (Ariela Barer), who is furious about him ghosting her for months until she learns the reason. Still, it’s clear to her that Aaron is not OK, causing her to pull away again.

The scenes that work less well and seem virtually superfluous are those with Kumail Nanjiani as Adeel, an environmental activist who drags Aaron along with him to break into a fracking site that is disturbing the breeding ground of…the sage grouse.

Duplass can’t be accused of lacking sensitivity as a director, and in the moments when See You When I See You works best, the movie has an infectious warmth. Until it turns into treacly cliché. The performances mostly are better than the material deserves — Raiff in particular, but also Davis and Boynton. No one enjoys beating up on a film in which the writer has invested so much of himself and his pain. But Cayton-Holland and Duplass have somehow made an authentic tragedy feel phony and unaffecting.

Movie Name :  Sirai
Streaming Date : Jan 23, 2026
Streaming Platform : ZEE5
123telugu.com Rating : 3.25/5
Starring : Vikram Prabhu, LK Akshay Kumar, Anishma Anilkumar, Ananda Thambirajah
Director : Suresh Rajakumari
Producer : SS Lalit Kumar
Music Director : Justin Prabhakaran
Cinematographer  : Madhesh Manickam
Editor : Philomin Raj

Related Links : Trailer

Sirai marks the 25th film of actor Vikram Prabhu. The Tamil movie was released on Christmas Eve and went on to score hit status at the box office. It has now arrived on OTT with a Telugu dub, and here is our review of the crime drama.

Story:

Set in 2003 in Guntur, Srinivas (Vikram Prabhu) is a head constable in the Armed Reserve (AR). During an escort duty, a prisoner attempts to escape, forcing Srinivas to shoot him dead, which puts him under scrutiny by higher authorities. While the enquiry is still ongoing, Srinivas is assigned another escort duty to transport Abdul Rauf (L. K. Akshay Kumar), a murder convict, from a central prison to Kurnool. During the journey, Srinivas senses something amiss, and the situation worsens when Abdul goes missing. With the prisoner required to be produced in court the very next day, the tension escalates. What happens next? Does Srinivas and his team manage to trace Abdul? Who is Abdul, and what is his backstory? The rest of the film unfolds the answers.

Plus Points:

The film touches upon a different and rarely explored aspect of police life. Unlike most films that focus on senior officers and portray them heroically, Sirai revolves around a head constable from the Armed Reserve. Srinivas is shown as a grounded human being rather than a larger-than-life policeman, which makes the approach refreshing.

Vikram Prabhu delivers a neat performance, but the actor who truly stands out is L. K. Akshay Kumar. He effectively portrays the dilemma, pain, and hope of a prisoner, and his performance becomes a major driving force of the film.

The flashback narrated from Abdul’s point of view is emotional and engaging. Along with the emotional depth, the suspense maintained in certain scenes, especially during the escape sequence and the pre-climax and climax portions, works well.

The police station episode after the escape, the emotional scenes in the final 30 minutes, including the courtroom portions, and the suspense-filled climax are well executed and keep the viewer engaged.

Anishma Anilkumar, as Kalavathi, delivers a neat performance. The remaining cast members perform adequately.

Minus Points:

There is limited scope to point out major drawbacks. Some viewers may find the initial portions slightly routine, but the narrative picks up as the film progresses.

Though Vikram Prabhu is the lead, his role offers limited scope for performance. While he gets sufficient screen time, the character does not demand much in terms of expressions. His personal life angle is underdeveloped, and the character of his wife adds little value to the story. In the flashback portions, the love story and conflict scenes could have been explored in more detail.

Technical Aspects:

Despite this being his debut, director Suresh Rajakumari impresses with his screenplay and execution, giving the film the feel of an experienced filmmaker’s work.

Justin Prabhakaran’s background score is one of the film’s highlights and plays a key role in maintaining suspense and enhancing emotional moments. Madhesh Manickam’s cinematography is neat and serves the narrative well.

Editing by Philomin Raj is effective, keeping the film crisp within its two-hour runtime. The production values are decent, and the Telugu dubbing is clean and well done.

Verdict:

On the whole, Sirai is an engaging crime drama backed by a solid screenplay and effective execution. Vikram Prabhu is decent, but L. K. Akshay Kumar steals the show. The police station episode, flashback portions, emotional moments, and suspenseful climax make it a film worth watching. Though the narration feels slightly slow in the beginning, it does not last long. On the whole, Sirai is definitely worth a watch for its content, execution, empathy, and humanity.

123telugu.com Rating: 3.25/5
Reviewed by 123telugu Team