Red เรด (2021) [บรรยายไทย]

Review: On paper, this Telugu remake of the Tamil film Thadam sound awfully smart. A story that sees look-alikes at the centre of it all and gives the police department a run for its money. Sounds exciting right? Reality is otherwise because despite curiosity winning the day and you wanting to find out who has committed this crime, Kishore Tirumala tests your patience so much, you almost want to give up.

Siddharth (Ram Pothineni) is a straight-laced civil engineer who’s on the verge of having all his dreams coming true. He has a great housing project in the works and the girl he loves, Mahima (Malvika Sharma) loves him in return. His look-alike Aditya is the exact opposite. A drunkard, womaniser and gambler to the tee, he’s also a smart scammer who loves to con the rich out of their money, only to gamble it all away in card games. A murder at a beach house lands these two in jail but with insufficient evidence, the police department only have 48 hours to crack this case. What happens next is what RED is all about.

But before we get to the more edgy part of the film, because there are two ‘protagonists’ to explore, Kishore Tirumala takes his own sweet time at setting up their characters. After a certain point the character tropes get repetitive and you makes you impatient to know what the point of this all is. Siddharth sings duets in Italy, Aditya gets a special number with Hebah Patel and the point is driven home that they’re polar opposites till you’re exhausted. And when things do get going, narratives are rushed and not enough time spent to let it sink in what’s really unfolding on-screen. Characters mouth overtly explanatory dialogues when you’ve just seen it all happen on screen. Everything just conveniently happens in the favour of these doppelgangers. You get the drift…

What does work for the film despite the draggy narrative are the back-stories. Often one complains that filmmakers never explain why certain characters are the way they are and opt for lazy writing. Kishore gives you all that and more. The narrative here too might not always be compelling but at least, he makes the effort to help you understand these people better. Do you want to even know these people better is a whole other story.

Ram is stellar as both Siddharth and Aditya. He seems effortless on-screen at playing both the almost-awkward, uptight but inherently ‘good’ Siddharth and the oh-so-bad man with the heart of gold Aditya, the latter of which seems more interesting. And it is his performance alone that makes you want to sit through this whole charade, even if after a point, you can predict the story from a mile away. Malvika Sharma looks adorable and gets the chance for her character to be of some importance later on. (Even if it's time filmmakers learn to stop showing violence against women as cinematic tropes which only serve the purpose of revenge.) It’s a mystery why Amritha Aiyer exists in this tale other than to serve some vague purpose. Nivetha Pethuraj excels at playing the wide-eyed naïve SI Yamini.

RED has its moments and has two characters that are kind of interesting at its core. It also has a brilliant cast. If only it were not let down by a draggy screenplay. Give this one a chance only if a weird, mixed dose of romance, thriller and masala is your cup of tea.