What's Behind
9 Hours web series starring Taraka Rant, Madhu Shalini, and Preeti Asrani in the lead roles generated immense interest with the teaser and trailer. With creative director Krish providing the story, the excitement increased. The web series is streaming on Disney+Hotstar and let us see how 9 Hours thrilled viewers.
Story Review
Hyderabad is rocked by the robberies in the Deccan Imperial Branches at Moosapet, Saidabad, and Koti. Afzalguj CI Pratap (Tarakaratna) reports the developments to the higher authorities. They will be surprised to findout the shocking developments in the central jail. To find out more about the mysterious developments and how they are connected to Dasarath (Ajay), Vinod Kumar (Vishwanath), Chitralekha (Madhu Shalini), Nandu (Ankit Koyya), Shravani (Preeti Asrani) enjoy 9 Hours.
Artists, Technicians Review
The story of 9 Hours is inspired by the popular English series Money Heist streaming on Netflix and also by the popular novel Tommidi Gantalu authored by Malladi Krishnamurthy. Creative director Krish came up with an interesting story which Niranjan Kaushik and Jacob Verghese helm. 9 Hours comes with 9 episodes and the makers showed what happened in each hour in each of the episodes. However, each episode has only a duration of 25-30 minutes.
Krish not only touched just the bank robberies but also went deep into the emotional conflict of the various characters and highlighted them aptly. This resulted in the directors deviating from the story and in between the narration drifted from the main plot testing the patience of the viewers. This slowed the pace of the episodes and also illogical scenes crept in. Stories of such kind need thrilling elements and this is what 9 Hours lacked. Few scenes had the trademark of Krish but the episodes featuring Rohini and Chitram Seenu dragged the pace and the narration. Directors should have come up with a racy screenplay and direction. Few questions and loose ends are left unanswered signaling that there will be a second season.
Taraka Ratna performed well in the role of CI. He showed good expressions and emotions. Madhu Shalini got a limited screen presence. Vinod Kumar, Sritej, Sameer, Ravi Prakash, and others performed according to the roles. However, among the entire cast, Ravi Varma turned out to be the surprise package. He showed different expressions and variations as a short-tempered person and a womanizer. If the series has the second season one can expect more twists in the roles of Madhu Shalini and Ajay.
The cinematography of Manoj Reddy is good. He used the camera angles in a perfect manner to give viewers a realistic feel of the developments. Shaktikanth Karthik's BGM is good. However, he could have worked hard to give more intensity and elevate the scenes increasing the thrill factor. The editing of Dharmendra Kakarala could have been far better.
Advantages
Tarakaratna, Sritej
Few scenes
BGM to some extent
Disadvantages
Slow pace
Illogical scenes
Lack of real twists and turns
Rating Analysis
9 Hours increased the attention of the viewers with Krish associating with the project. However, the web series turned out to be a damp squib, with a lack of thrilling elements. Except for a couple of twists, here and there, the predictable narration and routine elements robbed the movie lovers of the intensity. Considering all these elements, CJ goes with a 2.25 rating for 9 Hours.