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Monday, October 7, 2024
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TELUGU SPYDER
EDITOR'S PICK
'Spyder': Brings the thrill back into the thriller (Review By Subhash
K. Jha ; Rating: ****)
There is nothing like a perfect spy thriller. But "Spyder" comes close. It is
svelte, swanky and slick in a way that Telugu cinema is lately learning to be.
Most important of all, the leading man none other than Mahesh Babu, arguably
Andhra's no.1 star, plays it so cool, he is almost the antithesis of Prabhas'
sweaty over-exertve performance in "Baahubali".
An intrinsic aptness is applied to this film about intelligence and espionage.
Though there are wide passages of unbelievable visual spectacle and plot twists
that coil and recoil through a maze of unrepentant incredulity, there is
nonetheless at the core of "Spyder" a yarn that induces an adrenaline rush in
the audience while it rushes to go where angels fear to tread.
"Spyder", for all its overweening ambitions to keep the proceedings as real as
possible, never quite manages to avoid the outrageous. There is a creeping
tension enveloping the lengthy narrative. Though the film is two and half hours
long, the length never sits uneasily on the narrative. Though the language is
Telugu, I watched it without subtitles and I found no difficulty in following
the plot.
Some passages in the screenplay are sheer ingenuity masquerading as masala fare.
The post-intermission episode where Mahesh Babu playing a government
surveillance agent, takes the help of television-addicted housewives to nab the
terrorist, is a work of sheer genius. And the way the hero saves his mother and
kid-brother from the sadistic villain has to be seen to be believed.
Innovative writing in Indian cinema is hard to come by. One that synthesises
thrills with a certain sobriety so effectively is rare. Murugadoss' writing is
always ahead of his (considerable) skills as a director. And that's a good
thing. While he lets Mahesh Babu's star power do all the talking (even while the
actor himself remains distractingly quiet through most of the mayhem), the
director leaves nothing to chance.
There is no point of randomness in the plot. Every episode is written with a
precise intent and pulverising purpose.
Consequently the storytelling let loose a cannon that blows the screen apart.
The plot's construct is controlled, measured and kinetic. The narrative takes
time to build itself up into a frenzy of excitement. We are introduced to Mahesh
Babu's Shiva almost as a boring whitecollar government officer determined to
save distressed lives.
"I am no Superman or Spiderman," Shiva tells his friend and then proceeds with
intense irony to peak the pique, as Shiva takes on a psychopath who has a back
story that tells us with disturbing directness that the psychopath loves to kill
for the fun of it.
The climax in a collapsing multi-storeyed hospital is shot with an eye for
cataclysmic kicks.
Cinematographer Santosh Sivan shoots the action sequences, replete with
collapsing floors and walls and entire streets being mowed down by a deadly
boulder, with the glee one saw in the Hollywood disaster films of yore. Editor
Sreekar Prasad leaves no room for humbug in this tightly-wound tale of the
treacherous and the taut.
But I wish the song breaks had been done away. They are distracting in a
medieval show of musical freedom. Also, Rakul Preet Singh playing the female
lead is used almost like a comic sidekick to the hero, the way Sonakshi Sinha
was used by Murugadoss in "Holiday". Either he makes the heroine the hero of the
film, as he did in "Akira" or he just uses her as a prop. Is there no middle
ground for a more balanced gender equation?
The crux and the crisis of the plot converge on Mahesh Babu and the antagonist
played by Suriya. One is understated almost to the point of showing no emotion.
The other lets it all hang out. They make quite a pair, the yin and yang whose
action speaks far louder than their words.
Oh yes, there is a delectable tongue-in-cheek homage to Murugadoss's "Ghajini",
which is shown being screened in a theatre while Mahesh Babu searches for a
character who helps piece the villain's life together.
The more we explore the anatomy of violence in cinema the more it appears to the
same.
Murugadoss takes a familiar bad-guy-good-guy plot and converts it into a
compelling cat-and-mouse game shot in colours and favours that suggest life in
times of impending death.
Superstar Mahesh Babu, whose Telugu-Tamil spy thriller "Spyder" is releasing on Wednesday, says he has never liked the idea of remaking a film.Read More
Spyder' was a very challenging project: MurugadossFilmmaker A.R. Murugadoss says forthcoming Tamil-Telugu bilingual spy thriller "Spyder", which stars superstar Mahesh Babu in the role of an Intelligence Bureau officer, was a very challenging project.Read More
