It was the end of a long, exhausting workweek, and all I wanted to do was unwind with a movie. I logged onto Netflix, saw a massive new release trending at number one, and thought, “Why not? Let’s give it a shot.”
I was on my bloody sofa munching on chips at home. I was comfortable. Now looking back, I was already in paradise. Then why did I make this terrible choice? I genuinely thought Nani couldn't go wrong twice. Let's agree—the man has been behind masterpieces like Jersey and highly entertaining films like Gang Leader. But even his screen presence couldn't salvage this mess.
Two hours later, I was staring at my screen in absolute disbelief, questioning every single life choice that led me to that moment. If you ever want to mentally torture someone, just force them to watch this film. I genuinely pity the poor souls who paid hard-earned money to catch this utter disaster on the big screen.
After Dasara, I wanted to see what Srikanth Odela would do differently. Apparently, more of everything that exhausted me. He doubles down on every single exhausting trope plaguing modern mass cinema, completely abandoning plot structure, character arcs, and basic common sense in favor of pure, unadulterated misery porn.
Trauma as a Personality Trait
A "gritty" setting is fine, but the film mistook relentless trauma for deep storytelling. The narrative trapped me in a fictional, post-apocalyptic 1980s slum where literally every single character was in perpetual, screaming agony. There was no breathing room. It was just a numbing, loud barrage of stylized violence and filth.
And then, of course, came the inevitable transition. Instead of a clever, grounded protagonist who wins through strategy or sheer grit, the screenplay lazily elevated Nani's character into a literal God figure. I was subjected to the ultimate, overused cliché: a savior complex turned up to eleven, where I was expected to bow down and worship a character just because the background score was deafening.
Birds of a Feather Flop Together
When a script fails, there is a tendency to hide behind heavy-handed visual metaphors. In this case, it was an obsession with slums and... crows. Yes, crows.
The film beat me over the head trying to compare the oppressed slum community to crows—complaining that history only writes about beautiful pigeons and ignores the ugly, hungry scavengers. To drive this half-baked metaphor home, the screen was constantly choked with gratuitous visual clutter. Crows were flying everywhere, to the point where they were practically carrying weapons into fight sequences. It felt less like art and more like a bizarre, chaotic fantasy world where kuch bhi chalta hai (anything goes).
Where the Hell Is Everybody?
But the absolute breaking point for me was the complete and utter lack of common sense regarding the outside world. Where the hell were the police? Where was the media?
The story lazily tried to convince me that the villain had the local law enforcement completely in his pocket. But we are talking about daylight massacres, literal localized wars, and entire communities living under torture. How did violence on this scale draw no response from the outside world? Instead, the film operated in a lawless vacuum so the main character could suddenly spawn vehicles and weapons out of nowhere to fight a private war. It literally felt like the police and journalists were just sitting right outside the camera frame, munching on popcorn, waiting for the movie to wrap up so they could join me in roasting it.
Unearned Emotional Blackmail
To make matters worse, the film attempted to anchor its mindless violence in the ultimate lazy trope: the "mother sentiment."
Look, the classic "Mere paas maa hai" angle worked beautifully in Deewar because the film earned that emotion. Here, dropping the mother sentiment into a hyper-violent action block without building the relationship just felt manipulative and jarring. It existed solely as a cheap emotional cheat code to justify a protagonist doing horrific, unhinged things because "he loves his mom." When a film relies on that shortcut instead of building genuine, complex human motivations, the entire story collapses under its own weight.
The Final Verdict: Please Pass the Palate Cleanser
Ever since KGF hit the box office jackpot, filmmakers have been desperately trying to build these gritty, lawless cinematic "universes." But this film is proof that a massive budget and a camera lens caked in coal dust cannot replace a coherent screenplay.
I had to literally skim through the second half just to survive the predictability and the mindless gore. It was an absolute critical failure of a fantasy world, and frankly, I would rather watch Salaar on a loop than sit through this crap again. At least with Salaar, I knew exactly what brand of high-octane mass action I was getting.
I am currently pinning all my hopes on Karthik Subbaraj's new Tamil crime thriller, Dorothy, to completely wipe this disaster from my memory. Here is praying for actual plot twists, a tight screenplay, and a director who actually respects my time.
Adios Amigos !! Have a blast with Jailer 2 !!
Dinesh S
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