OTTs provide good opportunities and immense freedom to expand their creative horizons for the stars and the makers. Anger Tales featuring talented actors Suhas, Bindu Madhavi, Tharun Bhascker and Venkat Maha and co-produced by Suhas himself generated interest with an innovative trailer. The webseries is set for streaming on Disney+Hotstar from 9 March 2023. Let us find out what Anger Tales offers to movie lovers.
Anger Tales has four stories narrated in four episodes. The four episodes are titled Pooja, Giri, Radha, and Ranga. All the episodes highlight the stories of the respective characters and the characters' trails and tribulations.
Pooja (Madonna Sebastian) is pregnant and lives along with her husband Rajeev (Tharun Bhascker) and mother-in-law in a gated community. The gated community is strictly vegetarian and does not compromise on its principles and knowing that the couple acquired an apartment in it. Pooja is advised by the gynecologist to consume eggs for good health. Where this leads to form the rest of the story.
Giri aka Giridhar (Phani Acharya) works as a marketing executive in a real estate company. He couldn't climb up the professional ladder despite his hard work and due to his bald head, he is unable to get married. His woes increase even more with the sudden turn of events. How Giri dealt with it form the interesting part.
Couple Radha (Bindhu Madhavi) and Anand (Ravindra Vijay) live in a rented house. Despite their best efforts, they are unable to find a good house in their budget and they continue in the same house despite many loopholes. However, their woes intensify when the relatives of the owners enter the house. How Radha and Anand react should be found out.
Ranga (Venkat Maha), a die-hard fan of a top star decided to arrange for a benefit show for his star's upcoming film in the theatre in his place in a grand manner. But he faces many last-minute hurdles and trouble brews when Pachchabottu Seenu (Suhas) buys 200 tickets and comes to watch the benefit show. What this leads to and what do the differences between Ranga and Seenu become the conflict point.
Here are the episode-wise performances. In Episode Pooja, Madonna Sebastian got the lead role and she is ok with her performance and looks. She tried to show how she underwent the pain, unable to break through the shackles due to restriction before expressing herself. She is ok with her expressions. Tharun Bhascker in the role of her husband got only a few dialogues and though he delivered with ease, he just passed through the motions.
In Episode Giri, Phani Acharya lived in the role of Phani. The other cast also performed according to their roles. Phani Acharya showed his frustration of not seeing any growth in his job or life with good expressions and he elevated the scenes bringing in the intensity.
In Episode Radha, Bindu Madhavi and Ravindra Vijay came up with natural and realistic performances. In fact, they took the entire anthology to another level. The dialogues are good and their chemistry made an impact.
In Episode Ranga, Venkat Maha and Suhas livened the scenes. They came up with terrific performances and their screen presence, body language, and intensity in their roles powered it to new heights.
Anger Tales story and screenplay are readied by Nithin Prabala Thilak while the screenplay is aided by Karthikeya Karedla. The duo tried to highlight how common people and middle-class families get frustrated due to the happenings in their surroundings and what happens when they break their shackles. Though the idea is good and the duo tried to execute it in a realistic way, they missed the plot for a major part of it.
The first episode's narration starts at a slow pace and there is nothing that excites. People get interested when the female character tries to have her way but that intensity gets subsided the next moment. In the end, the episode ends in a silly manner.
The second episode starts in an interesting manner. There is a lot of scope to generate fun but the director failed to do so. He tried to add an emotional twist and in the end tried to drag it completely and lost the point in the end. Thus the first two episodes fail to excite or interest any viewers.
The third episode is shown in a realistic manner as to how middle-class people adjust in rented houses. However, the way the female character tries to address the problem looks silly and out of the mind. Many times in the episode, she went overboard turning the entire episode into a laughing stock. But the episode scores better than the other two thanks to the performances.
The fourth episode shows how diehard fans and the fans association president go all out to organize benefit shows and how distributors, and theatre owners face last-minute tensions. Everything is shown in a realistic, exciting and entertaining manner.
The music of Smaran Sai is just ok for all three episodes. Most of the time, everything is situational. However, in the fourth episode, he made a terrific impact with his background music. The cinematography of Amar Deep,Vinod K Bangari,Venkat R Sakhamuri, AJ Aaron is in sync with the story. But the fourth episode stands out. Editing of Pawan Kalyan Kodati could have been far better. There are many drags in the film that tested the patience of the viewers. Dialogues are pretty ordinary but at times are realistic. Over usage of cuss words in the fourth episode may put off viewers. Production values are ok.
Altogether, the Anger Tales anthology directed by Nithin Prabhala Thilak is a missed opportunity. He has the talented cast of Suhas, Venkat Maha, Ravindra Vijay, Phani Acharya, Bindu Madhavi, etc but failed to get the optimum out of it. Though he attempted to highlight the problems faced by the people in society, he failed to either show it in an entertaining or interesting, or impactful way. The narration lacks intensity and novelty and ended up in a mundane manner. The screenplay and direction adopted a predictable approach and this decreased the interest levels. With no real twists and interesting developments, viewers fail to get connected to the narration emotionally. With a little bit of fine-tuning, Anger Tales would have made a bigger impact. For all its flaws, a couple of episodes makes an impression. Considering all these aspects, Cinejosh goes with a 1.5 Rating for Anger Tales.