Movie: 118
Rating: 3/5
Banner: East Coast Productions
Cast: Nandamuri Kalyan Ram, Nivetha Thomas, Shalini Pandey, Prabhas Sreenu, Hari Teja, Rajeev Kanakala and others
Dialogues: Mirchi Kiran, V. Srinivas
Music: Shekhar Chandra
Cinematography: K V Guhan
Editing: Thammiraju
Action: Anbariv, Venkat, Real Sateesh
Producer: Mahesh S Koneru
Story, Direction: K V Guhan
Release date: Mar 01, 2019
Even though the actor has been going bad phase with series of flops, Kalyan Ram’s “118” has generated some positive buzz thanks to its intriguing trailer.
Let’s analyse.
Story:
Gowtham (Kalyan Ram), an investigative journalist, gets a dream when he stays in room no 118 in a resort. In his dream, he sees a girl getting beaten and a car being thrown into lake.
After waking up, he comes to a conclusion that he got similar dream earlier too when he stayed in the same room in previous months. He starts investigating the case to find out who the girl is.
Though his wedding is fixed with Megha (Shalini Pandey), he is keener on finding about this girl who turns out to be Aadhya (Nivedha).
Who is Aadhya? What has happened to her?
Artistes’ Performances:
Kalyan Ram has looked more like a stylish cop than an investigative journalist. However, he is neat in the role.
Nivetha Thomas gets meaty role in the second half and the talented actress once again proves her acting capabilities. Her performance in the second half is the highlight.
Shalini Pandey gets raw deal as female lead. Prabhas Sreenu, Hari Teja and Rajeev Kanakala are okay.
Technical Excellence:
The film is decent enough in terms of technical and production values. Cinematography and editing work gets noticed in the first half.
Highlights:
Concept
Screenplay
Nivetha Thomas
Background score
Drawback:
Predictability
Analysis
Kalyan Ram has been trying to do something new from long time but success is favouring him on rare occasions.
“118” is his latest attempt to try his hand in the genre of investigative thriller that is directed by cinematographer K V Guhan.
The concept is fairly interesting. Hero getting dreams on full moon night and seeing the vision of a girl intrigues us in the beginning.
His investigative mission to trace her also holds our interest. The first half is racy enough to hook us to the screen and nothing new is presented.
However, the film’s so-called main twist or core plot is too formulaic. Films dealing pharma scams or medical scams and a character landing in trouble due to this has become a standard template for many thrillers.
Despite racy screenplay and the director’s attempt to focus sole on the story with no deviation from the main plot, the big twist doesn’t excite us.
Nivetha Thomas’s flashback episode is predictable. But her performance and the lean runtime are the major points of the movie.
Director K V Guhan, who has lent cinematography to many hit movies like “Dookudu”, “Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu” and “Jalsa” has chosen to introduce a new concept “Lucid Dreaming” (one can go back to the past event for few minutes in lucid dream) but that has not been fully capitalized. Nevertheless, it brings some novelty to this otherwise simple thriller.
But the romantic track between Kalyan Ram and Shalini Pandey is almost non-existent. This is negative aspect of the movie. Shalini Pandey and Kalyan Ram’s mother roles are just like props in the scene.
Also Kalyan Ram should not have been presented as action star. He doesn’t look like a journalist at all.
All in all, “118” is a neat thriller with some early decent sequences. Though it doesn’t present anything new, it doesn’t bore us either, it holds interest with racy narrative.
Bottom-line: Engaging