Uday Shankar’s latest film Kshana Kshanam co-starring Arjun Reddy fame Jia Sharma hit the screens today. The film was directed by debutant Karthik Medikonda. Let’s see whether the film is as engaging as Venkatesh and RGV’s Kshana Kshanam.
Satya (Uday Shankar) is stuck in a loveless marriage as his wife Preethi (Jia Sharma) wishes to lead a lavish lifestyle, wherein he is in heavy debts. Meanwhile, he joins a dating app and makes friendship with a girl named Maya (Shruti Singh) who is murdered in her house and Satya is the prime witness as well as prime suspect. Who killed Maya? What’s the motive behind it?
Karthik Medikonda opted to a crime thriller subject for his debut directorial and the story has some twists and turns. However, monotonous narration plays the spoilsport. The last 20 minutes is the major highlight of the film. Karthik Medikonda gets good marks for his direction. Roshan Salur’s music is middling, wherein cinematography by Sidhardha Reddy is pretty average. Govind Dittakavi’s editing adds to negatives. Production values are moderate.
Onto artists, Uday Shankar comes up with a neat performance. He was good in a role with multi shades. Jia Sharma makes her presence felt as leading lady. Music director Koti played the role of an advocate and he is cool. Raghu Kunche played a brief role, wherein Shruti Singh oozed oomph. Ravi Prakash is okay as police officer. Other played their parts.
Uday Shankar
Final Twist
First Half
Tedious Screenplay
Production Values
Cinematography
Editing
Crime thrillers are a safe bet compared to other genre films and Kshana Kshanam falls under crime thriller genre. The film has some thrilling elements in the end, but enough time is wasted to show unsuccessful personal and professional life of protagonist. A better screenplay in first half would have made this a thrilling watch.
The movie begins on an interesting note with Uday Shankar getting interrogated in a murder case. However, his failure life brings boredom to viewers. When he feels no excitement in life, he starts chatting with a beautiful girl on a dating app. But, things turn from bad to worse for him with the girl getting killed and he is being probed as the prime suspect.
Narration turn bit interesting in second half as Raghu Kunche, husband of Shruti Singh, whom Uday Shankar doubts too gets murdered. Uday finds himself badly trying to prove his innocence. While the life he once had was hopeless, he is now living his most awful nightmare. The last portions, however, is a surprise package with secrets unfold one after the other.
On the whole, Kshana Kshanam is a middling crime thriller with monotonous story-telling. Particularly, first half was tedious. Thankfully, there are some engaging elements in second half. CJ goes with 2 star rating and you somehow enjoy if you are a fan of crime thriller films!