Director: KV Guhan
Writers: KV Guhan, Mirchi Kiran (dialogue), Sai Kiran (dialogue)
Forged: Abhishek Banerjee, Anand Deverakonda, Saiyami Kher
Freeway feels just like the sort of a thriller that may have felt clever if somebody was watching a thriller for the primary time of their life. However even a primary information of thrillers or tales within the style would possibly show too expensive and are available the way in which of having fun with Freeway to its fullest extent.
Freeway tells the story of a serial killer (Abhishek Banerjee) on the unfastened, with cop Asha Bharath (Saiyami Kher) on his tail. In the meantime, Vishnu (Anand Devarakonda) is on a mission to avoid wasting Thulasi (Manasa Radhakrishnan). And who’s Thulasi you ask? She’s operating away from her residence as a result of somebody molested her in the course of the evening and now she’s going to Mangalore searching for her father. Over the course of their journey on the street, Vishnu falls in love with Thulasi.
These two tales collide on the titular freeway when Thulasi falls into the fingers of the serial killer.
This movie makes use of violence in opposition to girls as a strategy to seize the viewers’s consideration and guilt them into sympathising with the protagonists and hating the antagonist. The concept of a freeway being stuffed with predatory males looks like a good one. However as you progress into the movie, you realise the movie depends on graphic depiction of violence and the voyeuristic gaze of its serial killer to an uncomfortable extent. We get it. He’s a serial killer. The unimaginative blaring music and the kitschy dialogue make all of that apparent. Do we have to see close-ins of the precise physique elements that he sees? Do we have to see him slash a physique, all of the mutilations and the swings of the blade?
The movie additionally goes to terribly pointless lengths to indicate that Thulasi is harmless and candy. She doesn’t know methods to use a cellphone, she doesn’t know methods to journey by herself, and sooner or later, she actually holds up a lamb whereas the serial killer seems at her. She even saves the serial killer from drowning and calls him Anna (elder brother). We get it. I understood that she is harmless. Thulasi is simply too candy to grasp she’s in bother. She’s naïve. You see how I repeated the identical concept thrice and it obtained irritating? Now think about that in a movie.
However aside from its gaze, structurally, the issue lies with its lead protagonist Vishnu. Anand Devarakonda is already caught with a personality with the least quantity of stake within the story, however he appears much more awkward taking part in a “hero” sort position the place he has a sidekick (Satya). What has labored in Anand Devarakonda’s favour is that he has been the butt of all of the jokes in his movies, however right here, he’s clueless being the “cool” man. Worse, Vishnu falls in love through the course of the thriller, so we get to see Thulasi (bear in mind she’s operating away from males who’ve tried to molest her) and Vishnu interact in a duet. It feels pointless and jarring, nevertheless it additionally terribly flawed for him to think about her like this.
This movie needn’t look so far as Silence of the Lambs, Zodiac, or Seven. Simply take a look at Raman Raghav 2.0 in Hindi cinema, Rastasan in Tamil cinema, and Anasuya which I nonetheless contemplate to be the best thriller, significantly within the serial killer house in Telugu cinema. All these movies use violence in opposition to girls to serve up thrillers, however at the least its characters really feel actual and the stakes really feel excessive. Right here, Anand Devarakonda feels extra redundant than a few of the dialogues that Saiyami Kher has to say. Do we’d like a cop to say “We lastly obtained the bastard” proper after catching the serial killer? Possibly the concept was to make a ingesting recreation each time she talks to herself whereas determining clues or says the phrase “bastard”. As a result of you already know powerful cops try this. Can’t we’ve got girls cops who’ve a depraved humorousness? Do we’d like them to be so boring?
I’m undecided what compelled KV Guhan to inform this explicit story in this method. I feel the actors obtained fantastic pay cheques, so I get their motives. However KV Guhan’s motives to inform this story stay a extra fascinating thriller than the serial killer’s motives on this movie.