Next Nuvve Review

'Next Nuvve', starring Aadi Sai Kumar, Brahmaji, Vaibhavi, Rashmi and others, hits the screens on Friday.  Here is our review.

Story:

Kiran (Aadi), a wannabe director, is mired in debts.  He and his girlfriend Smitha (Vaibhavi) are clueless about their future.  This is when Kiran receives a letter from a stranger (played by Brahmaji), who lets him know that his late father (Posani) had left a fortune in the form of a dilapidated bungalow in a faraway place.

No prizes for guessing that this bungalow is haunted by a ghost.

Not knowing that it's an accursed residence, Kiran, Smitha, Brahmaji's character and his sister Rashmi (Rashmi Gautham) turn it into a resort.  Every guest who stays at the resort dies under mysterious circumstances day in and day out and, out of fear of being caught for no crime of theirs, the four bury the dead in the bungalow's backyard.

This goes on and on until the day a vagabond (played by LB Sriram) reveals the bungalow's 30-year-old bloody history.  What is that and why are Kiran and Co in trouble?  This is the rest of the story.

Analysis:

A good half-an-hour into the second half, Brahmaji says this to a character: 'Go and die in the hands of your creditor.  It's better to die that way rather than be killed by a mysterious entity in this haunted place'.  This line pretty much defines the saga of a horror film whose ghost plays truant for too long for no rational reason.  You wait and wait for some dose of the ghost all through the never-ending first half and for a good 30 minutes of the second.

A range of comedians chip in with small doses of low-brow comedy: Jayaprakash Reddy, Raghu Karamanchi (as a Mumaith Khan favourite), Raghu Babu (as a con man who makes the main leads believe that Chandramukhi, Jaganmohini and the like are his servants), Prudhvi as a serial artist, Tagubothu Ramesh as a professional digger, so on and so forth.

Then you have double meaning dialogues, gay comedy (Aadi and Brahmaji are mistaken to be homosexuals), cameos by Mumaith and Shakeela (Brahmaji was the latter's hero of 'Intlo Thingari, Sandulo Sundari', we are told), Rashmi lusting a well-toned hunk, the women (Vaibhavi and Rashmi) having a hair-pulling fight even as their guests have died a shocking death, Rashmi lusting (mainly) the other woman's boyfriend, the restrained use of 'prasalu' ('Adbutham jariginappudu aascharyapovali, aara theeyakoodadu'), so on and so forth.

When looked in bits and pieces, 'Next Nuvve' presents fairly engaging ideas, at least on paper.  For example, the repeated reference to gravedigging brings the roof down, especially when a calm and subdued Brahmaji talks about it.  The poor arithmetic skills of Aadi and his girlfriend, Brahmaji's fear of the mirror, etc are good ideas.  Had the first half excused us at least 25 minutes early on, it would have been a forgivable fare.

The flashback comes in too late.  Then there is the complaint that the director (TV personality Prabhakar's debut) wastes too much of time on misleading the audience into thinking that Brahmaji could be dangerous.

In the end, once the flashback is done, there is nothing much to hold on to.  The many comedy scenes dilute the sincerity.  The screenplay fizzles out pretty fast.

Brahmaji and Aadi walk away with good comic timing.  Rashmi and Vaibhavi are wasted in ill-etched roles.  All the comedians put together don't match the one-man army that is Mr. B.

Srikanth Vissa and Nirupam Paritala's dialogues are largely inconsistent.  Sai Karthik's BGM is OK.  The song on the clout of money is good to listen.

Verdict:

The remake of a Tamil movie, 'Next Nuvve' is quirkiness personified.  Its apparent strengths turn out to be its weaknesses when they spread themselves too thin.

నెక్స్ట్ నువ్వే మూవీ రివ్యూ తెలుగు లో