Red Review: Not gripping enough

Red Trailer

What’s it about?

Aditya (Ram) is addicted to gambling, also does petty crimes in Vizag. In the same city lives Siddharth (Ram), a civil engineer, who exactly looks like Aditya. Are they twins? But their worlds are poles apart. Then how are they connected? Siddharth is a suspect in a murder case. A police officer (Sampath Raj) who has a past rivalry with Siddharth wants to incriminate him in this case in any manner. But Aditya throws a surprise. When Aditya gets arrested in a drunken case, and his identical features with Siddharth leaves the police officers puzzled. Either of them has committed murder, the police think. But who did – Aditya or Siddharth?

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Analysis
For the first time in his career, Ram gets the opportunity to play a dual role in ‘Red’, which is a novelty for him as an actor, and his fans as well. We don’t have any doubts about his acting capabilities, and as expected, Ram does justice to both roles. But Kishore Tirumala directed ‘Red’ is not a masala film, but a murder mystery.

This genre requires gripping narration than the actor’s capabilities. That is where ‘Red’ falters big time. Based on the story by Magizh Thirumeni (this is an official remake of the Tamil movie ‘Thadam’), director Kishore Tirumala has further developed it in his style.

Kishore, however, has made some missteps in his attempt to package this thriller as for the image of Ram Pothineni. Frankly, the plot needs an actor who does not have a star hero image as Ram Pothineni has. Hence, Kishore has made many changes to the original. Instead of giving more value to the original story, these alterations that Kishore has done provides the contrary result – less gripping, fat to the runtime.

Moreover, the investigative process looks unreal.

Kishore’s trademark dialogues like “Ramayanam aadadi raasi unte bagundedi…anumanam anedi undedi kaadu” stand out, but they have added little value to the core theme.

The result is unsatisfying.

Ram shines in the two roles. He puts his best foot forward. Except for Amritha Aiyer, none of the female actresses leave an impression with their acting skills.

Mani Sharma’s music was the pillar of Ram’s previous film, ‘iSmart Shankar’, here his music hardly makes an impact. The visuals provided by Sameer Reddy are rich.

Bottom-line: ‘Red’, a remake of a Tamil murder mystery, falters in its narration. The plot point is interesting, but the narration is not gripping enough.

By: Jalapathy Gudelli
Rating: 2.5/5

Film: Red
Cast: Ram, Malvika Sharma, Nivetha Pethuraj, Amritha
Music: Mani Sharma
DOP: Sameer Reddy
Producer: Sravanthi Ravi Kishore
Screenplay, dialogue, and directed by: Kishore Tirumala
Release Date: Jan 14, 2021
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What’s it about?Aditya (Ram) is addicted to gambling, also does petty crimes in Vizag. In the same city lives Siddharth (Ram), a civil engineer, who exactly looks like Aditya. Are they twins? But their worlds are poles apart. Then how are they connected? Siddharth...Red Review: Not gripping enough