maarakan

This is the only Telugu movie I was able to enjoy without setting a part of my brain aside. But that's not the only reason I'm writing this review. I do love a good action film with a female protagonist. But that's not the only reason either. It's a well-written and well-made movie by any standard. Ruhani Sharma's performance is excellent. The camera work is excellent. The production values are top-notch. And, to top it all, it's one of the few Indian movies that passes the Bechdel test too. But don't watch it expecting too much - it's just a simple investigation movie that progresses at the right pace and delivers the right punches at the right time. Nothing more and nothing less.

I really wanted to give this movie a better rating. Because it has got a good script, and excellent performances by all the actors. Surabhi Lakshmi, Maala Parvathi, and Dinesh Prabhakar were exceptional. Surabhi's performance is the backbone of the movie. But the weakness of the movie is that it is terribly slow and unnecessarily drawn out, especially the last act. Anoop Menon is a good writer but he is not by far a good director; he should have left that job to someone else (like V. K. Prakash with whom he has worked in "Beautiful" and "Trivandrum Lodge"). My rating for the screenplay is 8/10 and direction is 2/10, so averaging the two, the movie score becomes 5/10.