24 Movie Review

24 Movie Review, What’s Behind: After directing ‘Manam’ in Telugu, Vikram Kumar became an overnight star. Suriya is a hero with wonderful market in Telugu. Their combination for a sci-fi thriller based on time journey aroused excitement across the South. Let’s start our review journey into deep?

24 Movie Story: Taking a plunge directly into story with titles, Shiva Kumar (Surya) is introduced as a scientist working on inventing a watch which can journey in time and is on the verge of cracking it. Soon enters Shiva Kumar’s villain brother Athreya (Suriya) killing Shiva Kumar and his wife Priya (Nithya Menon) while their infant son Mani survives along with the device. Fast forward by 26 years, Mani (Suriya) grows up opening a watch work shop in Vizag. Fate plays the game as Mani is provided with a key to open the box in which the time device is hidden. Stunned by the creation, Mani uses the watch to go back in past, freeze the time and see the future just to win the love of Sathya Bhama (Samanta). Story cannot stop here because Athreya recovers from coma and kills Mani to conquer the watch. However, here’s a big twist waiting. This time device can go back or front in time only by 24 hours. How Athreya uses his brain to emotionally blackmail Mani for re-engineering the time creation going back in past by 26 years? How Mani rescues his father and mom in 1990 forms the rest.

24 Movie Artists and Technicians: Beauty of fiction is; we start to believe in those unbelievable happenings if the orator conveys it with conviction. In fact, the very ability to go back in time and correct our previous mistakes is an out-of-world thought conceptualized into a complete script by Vikram Kumar. He was awesome right from the go. One has to take a bow for such in depth scripting and visionary presentation. Apparently, ‘24’ succeeded from its very primary concept. Vikram Kumar executed it with elan despite few drawbacks and cinematic liberties marred the journey in second half. Overall, Vikram yet again proved that he is class apart and a rare jewel in Indian cinema. Thirru’s cinematography is flawless as each visual leaves you arrested. Prawin Pudi’s editing was incoherent at places and second half definitely needs tome trimming. AR Rahman’s main musical score for the songs was disappointing. Re-recording, he has set a sensible mood to the narrative. Art work and VFX stood top notch. Production values from 2D Entertainment and Gnanavel Raja are top grade. Hats Off to Suriya for investing on a project which has capacity to elevate Indian cinema to a new level.

About artists, the film is everything about Suriya. He is the hero, he is the villain and he is the savior. He left a distinctive feel in three different shades. Suriya’s sincerity up-heaved the overall film standard for sure. His romance with Samanta, pain as Shiva Kumar and cruelty as Athreya will leave you in shock. Such abnormal transformation from a single artist is rare to see and is outstanding. Samanta is hourglass figure restricted to songs and romance. Nithya Menon does a good job. Ajay surprisingly enjoyed a full length role and stood impressive. Saranya touched emotionally. Girish Karnad, Sudha and others were also fine.

24 Movie Rating Analysis: For all those novelty loving cinema audience complaining on creative deficiency levels among South directors and writers, Vikram Kumar is the only answer. His brain is surely a special device familiar for playing with time. Vikram is an amazing technician with Indian intelligence. Like scientific concepts in Hollywood always confuse the audience, Vikram has put forward a theme, simple to understand and easy to accept. 

Into the first half, the narrative has very early erected a standard foundation of belief in the concept though it had high levels of incredulity. The ambience created to make us believe in this fiction concept is again a brilliant work. When Mani gets hold of the watch, every bit of time episode he used it to impress Sathya Bhama kept us excited and entertained. That’s the magic which takes us on a stroll till Athreya is back into scene. Interval block is again majestically executed. The real craftsman in Vikram comes in second half. Despite an unimpressive, dragged love track killed the film’s pace, intelligent mind play between Mani and Athreya taking us back into 1990 for climax is a genius move. 

Apparently, a fiction film of this massive scale inherently seeds some cinematic liberties. But as you join in with narrator’s mindset, those loopholes appear minimal and excuse-able. As screenplay ticks on with director imploring twists, turns keeping us kicking all the time, ‘24’ stands as a special product to be watched definitely by all sets of audience. Congratulating Vikram and Suriya for touching a brilliant subject and marvelous execution, CJ is here to rate ‘24’ with 3.25 stars. It’s our duty to encourage the natural aptitude in contemporary film makers and films like ‘24’ comes only once in a while.

24 Movie Cinejosh Verdict: Just Brilliant…

                                                  24 Movie Cinejosh Rating: 3.25/5.0

                                                                                               Reviewed by Srivaas