Naresh Agasthya's Men Too directed by Srikanth G Reddy attracted the attention of all with innovative titles. The teaser and trailer generated hype and the film hit the screens today. The film's OTT rights are yet to be finalized and its streaming will be on at a later date. Let us find out whether Men Too entertained movie lovers or not.
Men Too story is all about men becoming victims of the Me Too movement and how women are taking advantage of that law to target men inadvertently to reach their selfish goals. Stags Only bar has many stories of victimized men and here it revolves around three men Aditya (Naresh Agasthya) who works in a sales department of a company, Sanju (Kaushik Ghantasala) who returns from the US as couldn't adjust to the lifestyle, and Munna ((Mourya Siddhavaram), a bike mechanic.
All boils down to the incidents in their life, the girls associated with them, Tara (Riya Suman) and Neha (Priyanka Sharma), and how bar owner (Brahmaji) , waiter Jack Daniel (Sudarshan), and Rahul (Viva Harsha) are connected to them.
Naresh Agasthya looked charming on the screen and that is it. He couldn't express himself on the screen and made an impact as an introvert. He just looked like a bystander though he got the all important role. Kaushik Ghantasala is ok in the role of a confused desi who returned from US. He showed some emotions on the screen. Mourya Siddavaram shone among all the three. He showed good expressions and emotions and his body language is good.
Riya Suman looked beautiful on the screen and she got limited screen presence. Priyanka Sharma is ok in her role as Neha. Brahmaji just passed through the motions and so did Viva Harsha. Viva Harsha is not used fully in the film.
Men Too story penned by Srikanth Reddy tried to show the other side of the Me Too movement. He tried to highlight the problems faced by men who are victimized falsely by a few women. Though the idea looked good on paper, he failed to come up with a proper story and strong script.
He looked confused in the entire narration as he concentrated only on the problem faced by the Viva Harsha and in the process lost the entire plot. He took his own sweet time to establish the characters and at times one is reminded of webseries like Save The Tigers. Srikanth Reddy tried to generate fun in a similar manner but with a weak story and not-so-impactful and effective dialogues, he failed in his attempts.
Even the problem he selected to highlight, he failed to show it in an effective way. The screenplay and direction left a lot to be desired. Though the actors tried their best to take the film to the next level, with insipid dialogues and characterization, everything fell flat.
The editing of Karthik Unnava followed the same pattern throughout the film. He should have trimmed the film for quite some time to make the narration racy. Elisha Praveen G and Osho Venkat's music is just ok. Except for the first song, none of the songs attract viewers. BGM is just ok. PC. Mouli did not show much scope to show his talent as a cinematographer as most of the film was shot in a bar set. Dialogues are just ok. Production values of Lantern Creative Works is ok.
Altogether, Men Too turned out to be bland. Though Srikanth Reddy chose an interesting subject, he failed to execute it properly on the screen. Men Too turned out to be regressive and instead of addressing the problems faced by men as few women taking advantage of the Me Too movement, it instead generalized women making sweeping comments through the dialogues. Women characters are shown in a bad way just to increase sympathy for the victimized men but it backfired completely. In order to counter pseudo-feminism, he turned the film into male chauvinism. With a weak story, lackluster screenplay, and direction. Men Too failed miserably. Considering all these aspects, Cinejosh goes with a 2 Rating for Men Too.