What's Behind
Rahul Ramakrishna, Avika Gor's NET directed by Bhargav Macharla increased the curiosity levels with the thrilling teasers and trailers. The web series started streaming on ZEE5 and with Rahul promoting the film in an aggressive manner, let us see whether NET lived up to all the hype created.
Story Review
Lakshman (Rahul Ramakrishna) who runs a mobile shop in Nalgonda is unhappy with his wife Suchitra (Praneeta Patnaik) as he was forced into marrying her by his ailing father. Lakshman has a fascination for jeans-clad girls and watches them on his mobiles. He gets so obsessed with them that he uses the money saved for his family's daily expenses to recharge his mobile and watch them secretly without the knowledge of his innocent wife. He gets addicted to a young girl, a software engineer Priya (Avika Gor), and subscribes to a porn site spending a bomb. But shocking incidents happen, turning everyone's lives upside down. To find out whether Lakshman has an evil motive towards Priya, does Priya ever know that she has been spied 24/7 by a porn site and how her boyfriend Ranjith (Vishnu Dev) reacts, watch NET on Zee5.
Artists, Technicians review
Director Bhargav Macharla selected a unique storyline and tried to relate the rural and urban lifestyles and how lives get affected when a couple without their knowledge gets spied by a porn streaming site whose whereabouts are unknown. He takes his own sweet time to establish the characters and the narration goes at a snail's pace with Rahul watching Avika on mobile. By the time, Bhagav establishes his motive, the film nears completion. In the process, he ended up repeating the same scenes again and again like the unhappy relation between Rahul and his wife and the mysterious relation between Avika and her boyfriend. Though little interest is generated at the pre-climax, the climax turned out to be flat. Bhargav failed with his screenplay and direction. He left many loopholes and the illogical narration marred the output. There are many unanswered questions and one gets a feeling that Bhargav planned to leave the loose ends with a plan to come with another part. However, his plan backfired within no time.
Rahul Ramakrishna known for his comedy roles did his role perfectly. He showed his frustration as an unhappy person forcibly married and who carves for happiness looking on the net. Praneeta Pathak of C/O Kancherapalem fame has a limited role to perform as Rahul's wife. Avika Gor got nothing to do except to pass through the motions. She did well emoting well in the pre-climax and climax scenes. Vishwa as the brother of Suchitra did well in his role. Vishnu also passed through the motions.
Naresh Kumaran's BGM is ok but it was louder in the second half. Abiraj Nair's cinematography is in sync with the storyline. The editing of Raviteja Girijala could have been better. There are many repetitive scenes in the film which slowed the narration. Production values are good.
Advantages
Not many
Premise
Rahul Ramakrishna
Disadvantages
Screenplay, Direction
Editing
Rating Analysis
Rahul Ramakrishna, Avika Gor's NET increased interest among movie lovers touching upon the novel line. However Bhargav Macharala instead of turning NET into a cybercrime thriller completely sidetracked the subject and dwelt only on human emotions. Had he concentrated on how cops or the lead pair catch the criminals, it would have been more gripping and thrilling. With most of the time spent only on human emotions, the narration dragged testing the viewers' patience. Considering all these points, CJ goes with a 2.25 rating for NET.