Thikka Review

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"Make no mistakes, only one thing is certain in this film.  Every conversation is invariably interrupted by an attack before the hero or his benevolent father or some other female character can have breathing space.  The hero cannot afford to play Holi in peace, he can't peaceably have a conversation on the road.  He is not even allowed to sit in peace.  He makes his eyes Xtra large, there comes a fight.  He is confused, he is threatened.  He makes a call and sits on the bike waiting for Nikita Patel, there is a fighting scene".

This is an excerpt from IndiaGlitz's review of Suneel Reddy's last film - 'Om 3D'.  Make no mistakes, something devastating on these lines can be said about the director's latest release, too - 'Thikka'.  The movie-watching experience can be described in one word: Unsettling.

Adithya (Sai Dharam Tej) is honest about his love for Anjali (Larissa), but his devil-may-care attitude makes her believe that he is no sincere.  He bids her goodbye or so we think.  Even as his sweetheart of two years is on the verge of breaking up with him once and for all, office politics by Ali (made up as a middle-aged, half-bald joker in a romantic relationship with Mumaith Khan), threatens his relationship with Sathya, his bestie since school days.  All seems settled when Anjali reveals her other plans and Sathya realizes that Ali conned his friend to create a rift between them, but Rajendra Prasad's arrival with Kamala, the daughter of a murdered drugs-peddler, threatens to ruin his life.   But it's all comedy and not serious.

Thikka's premise is hardly exciting.  The film takes place in a world of its own as the characters range from a shemale, to a don who has no idea how the one he has to kidnap looks, to a hero who doesn't behave normally upon finding his lover girl after a night of semi-adventures (a normal lover boy would first remove the veil and hug her).  If someone said that is what comedy is about, the refrain has to be, 'Get a life'.  That's not how every character has to be like.

While laughs could have been elicited in such a premise, Suneel Reddy follows a neither-here-nor-there kinda screenplay.  Teju's character behaves like someone forcefully sucked into the absurdity of his surroundings.  In due time, he himself turns silly.  On the other hand, the father-son (Rajendra Prasad-Teju) comes half-done at best.

In an attempt to make a comedy of confusion, the writer-director duo introduce many characters, but between them, they are too much.  With some characters having more than a shade, it's crowded.

One feels the audience were hardly prepared to watch a comedy like this.  The screenplay style passes muster, but it has not always sold with the audience.  In the context of Teju becoming bigger after 'Supreme', the kind of comedy involving him, Ali, Posani Krishna Murali and others is not apt.  There is no emotional core in a film that has the element of father-son and boy-girl relationship.

Sai Dharam Tej gets to sound convincing with his comic timing.  He is adorable in some of the scenes and the songs.  In a film filled with many over-the-board acts, he manages to keep it simple.  Larissa and Mannara both are good-looking, but the affected style is a let-down.   There is an attempt to give Rajendra Prasad a new flavour, but the same falls flat.  Sathya, Sapthagiri and Vennela Kishore elicit a few laughs.  But the same can't be said about Raghu Babu, Ali and Tagubothu Ramesh.

Harshavardhan's dialogues are insipid.

The production values help the technical output.  Cinematography by KV Guhan is at the first spot, followed by Thaman music and BGM, although the latter shouldn't have been that loud.

Verdict: A comedy of confusion around a kidnap circus loses its way right from the word go.

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