Vishal gained decent market in Tollywood and is now hoping to extend his range with a high octane action entertainer Action. Tamannaah is the leading lady and Sundar C helmed the project. Will this commercial entertainer please Telugu audience?
Military Colonel Subhash (Vishal), son of Andhra Pradesh CM is on a mission to capture the culprits behind deadly terror attack that led to the death of his fiancée Meera (Aishwarya Lekshmi) and his elder brother (Ramki) who is supposed to take charge as next CM. Subhash’s Army colleague Diya (Tamannaah) joins him on the mission. Who’s behind this massive terror attack? What odd circumstances Subhash and Diya underwent to track down the culprit? Will they be successful in the mission?
Plot inherently has hero's assignment dual shaded with both patriotic and personal revenge formula offering the likelihood of an emotional attach. Unfortunately ousy writing doesn't bring these emotions to fore. After certain point, the premise becomes overstretched and story telling becomes predictable. Action scenes and taking reminds us of recent Bollywood action flicks. Due to poor VFX work, visuals looked poor in crucial action sequences. Still, makers spent lot as lavishness is sprinkled in many parts. Dudley’s cinematography is top-class while Hip-Hop Tamizha tried best to elevate the scenes with enchanting background score. Songs were okay on screen. Editor NB Srinath should have chopped many unnecessary scenes, especially in second half.
Onto performances, Vishal carried the role of an army officer with elan, particularly the action sequences he was at best. The efforts he put in have been transformed well on screen. Tamannaah also got a meaty role. Besides oozing oomph wearing skin-revealing outfits, she also performed daredevil stunts. Aishwarya Lakshmi who played Vishal’s love interest hasn’t got much to perform. Ramkee’s role was more like a cameo. Kabir Duhan Singh is wasted completely. None of the other artists are given much importance.
Few Action Scenes
Vishal
Tamannaah’s Glamour
Poor Writing
Unexciting Narration
Weak Villain Track
Predictability
VFX
True to the title and the genre, the film has numerous action parts, of which most lacked realism. The way plot is set up is spotless. But once the second half begins, things go amiss. Then screenplay starts lagging a lot and viewer engagement takes a beating. Vishal’s risky stunts and Tamannaa’s glamour quotient go in vain because of tedious screenplay.
First half begins on exciting note with high octane action sequence in Istanbul with Vishal and Tamannaah together taking on a local mafia gang. Then, the story goes back to few weeks to recount, what led these two to fight in the foreign soil. After introduction of Vishal’s family and emotional bonding followed by Vishal’s romance with fiancé, finally the drama ends with massive terror attack. So much cinematic liberty is taken here in the process to track down anonymous person behind the attack. Interval episode promises latter half going to be much more exciting.
Post-interval, there is no story to tell, so things go at snail’s pace with monotonous scenes. London chase was breathtaking and definitely one of the best in entire film. But then, bank episode was an obsolete idea. Istanbul fight provided some relief. Finally, the duo goes to Pakistan to meet villain for the first time. Given all the hype, we expect a strong villain who might trouble the protagonist. But the villain shamelessly gets outsmarted in his own den, thus making a poor end to all the narrative.
On the whole, Action is an average attempt from Vishal and director Sundar C. Although first half had few good and enjoyable moments here and there, second half hardly has any such elements except couple of action episodes. The film is strictly for those who love action movies. CJ goes with 2.5 stars and we need to wait n see how it fares at box office.