Happening hero Vijay Deverakonda ventured into production with MMC that also marks heroic debut for director Tharun Bhascker to introduce Shameer Sultan as director. Is this a fruitful experiment after the final round of interesting promotions?
TV anchor Rakesh (Tharun Bhascker) just couple of days before marriage with girlfriend (Vani Bhojan) receives an inappropriate video that brings unwanted tensions in his life. With help of best buddy Kamesh (Abhinav Gomatam), how Rakesh tries to catch blackmailer who uploaded the video and how he bails out of tension situations ahead of marriage is the film all about.
Having come from short film background, Vijay Deverakonda’s passion for film making and honesty in friendship seems to have propelled him to become a producer. Unfortunately, the content he picked up for maiden production venture is also pure short film stuff. The tricky situation of a guy whose wedding is fixed next day if locked in a sex tape scandal that surfaced freshly on internet is by itself basic nucleus for MMC. A funny line story alone isn’t enough to make a feature film because screenplay needs to be in detail to conceive scenes out of funny contextual situations and characters pop out to serve the fundamental purpose of comic entertainment. Wafer-thin story sans entertaining elements is made into nearly 2 hour feature film resulted in tedious narration. Shameer Sultan showed his inexperience in handling the film which would have been a roller-coaster ride with proper screenplay and superior taking.
Except simple and amusing dialogues penned by Tharun Bhascker, Shameer and spelt by two lead characters aka Tharun, Abhinav; there is no big time pass. Camera by Madan Gunadeva is a classic extended short film take. Editing by Srijit Sarang is so leisurely paced as second half is made a hectic watch. Shiva Kumar’s songs and background score is acceptable. Production values from Vijay Deverakonda and Vardhan Deverakonda are low on quality.
Onto performances, Tharun Bhascker is uber cool in few scenes. Due to similar frustrated expressions, watching him 2 long hours as protagonist is repetitive. Yet, he passed the test. Abhinav Gomatam as Tharun’s friend provided full relief and is a surprise package in the end. He got equal screen time with that of Tharun. Vani Bhojan did not get much space in poorly written characterization and was okay in her role as sensitive, caring girlfriend. Naveen George Thomas was tolerable and Anasuya Bharadwaj wasted. Pavani Gangireddy, Avantika were good in brief roles.
Few Comedy Scenes
Wafer-thin Story
Tedious Screenplay
Direction
Production Values
Writer, director Shameer Sultan though begins story telling on hilarious note, slowly and steadily he lost the steam to rehash same set of circumstances. In fact, characters like that of hacker friend, his sister (Anasuya), director, heroine (Avantika), her politician uncle, wedding photographer or the parents of Tharun and Vani Bhojan, none of them exploded. This is the basic flaw which made MMC stand alone on Tharun, Anhinav shoulders. Screenplay based films needs to have appealing aspects and capable actors with good technicalities to engage viewers all through which is not the case with MMC.
Initially, Tharun Bhascker and Abhinav Gomatam’s chemistry provided relief to an extent. Tharun’s entry as TV show anchor, Abhinav joining his friends for cricket match cheating his wife is a decent take off to share the best friend’s secret. Like every love story, beginning of Tharun-Vani Bhojan and Abhinav-Pavani Gangireedy romantic tracks are dealt as time pass. Once the controversial video surfaces on top of story, real fun has to kick start. Here on, Shameer lost the track. Increasing view count for the video directly affecting Tharun’s mental state on one hand and inter-religion wedding complicacies on other hand created enough situations to generate fun but that isn’t exploited to needful extent. Episodes of Tharun, Abhinav approaching the director and heroine regarding the leaked video or the food lover hacker friend at work, routine and uninteresting elements spoiled the interest. Whatsapp video call paved way for the interval.
Second half is the exact place where cards fell in wrong place and scenes are over stretched beyond the elastic point. Despite many characters at disposal, comedy did not work out and Shameer drained all the energies. King Hacker, the charity aspect, twist in characters and the wedding episode… if at all at least one of these episodes worked in favor, MMC would have gone to next level comedy film.
In total, MMC is a missed opportunity for entire team including producer Vijay Deverakonda. Onto final financial equations, budget recovery and best of profits are assured for Vijay because of shoe string budget invested. Had content been well written and well executed, MMC should have exploited the dry patch at BO post Sye Raa. Yet, Tharun and Abhinav make it an ok watch. CJ goes with 2.25 stars rating.