What's Behind
Regina Cassandra, Nivetha Thomas' action entertainer Saakini Daakini directed by Sudheer Varma is appealing to all with the unique and creative title. The film's teaser and trailer generated hype as Regina and Nivetha underwent a lot of training and enacted high-octane stunts and the film is the remake of the Korean hit Midnight Runners. Saakini Daakni 's post-theatrical OTT theatrical rights have been bagged by Netflix.The film is releasing on September 16 and let us see what it offered to movie lovers.
Story Review
Saakini Daakini story is about two young police recruits and their experiences during their training. Daamini (Regina Cassandra) and Shalini (Nivetha Thomas) who join as trainees at a police academy are at loggerheads unable to get along with each other. In the process, when they come across a kidnapping they get a huge shock signaling to an unbelievable scam. How Daamini and Shalini dealt with it and how it is connected to Kidnapper (Johnson) and Professor Rajiv Kumar (Rajiv Kumar), form the basis of Saakini Daakni.
Artists, Technicians Review
Sudheer Varma, the director of the official remake of the Korean film, Midnight Runners, used his creativity to turn Sakini Daakini into female-centric. He should be appreciated for this effort and in the process, he decided to touch up on various controversial topics like egg donation and surrogacy. It is known that the government of India passed a new law in 2021 to control assisted reproduction and surrogacy.A law passed in 2021 called the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act forbids commercial surrogacy. Similar to this, the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act of 2021 (ART Act) aims to control, oversee, and prevent the misuse of assisted reproductive technology clinics and banks.
Though the idea is right, he quickly loses steam after the initial interesting start. Right after the well-depicted police training scenes. everything goes for a toss with illogical scenes. Though the illegal organ trafficking idea looks interesting, he came up with routine elements to rob the excitement. He failed in his script and his screenplay and direction lacked the basics. Except for a few training scenes and entertaining elements in the first half, everything turns out to be a tedious watch with emotions missing completely. In his attempt to be creative with the original script of Midnight Runners, Sudheer Varma turned out to be Midscript Burners. Generally, creative people when they get excited fly high and at that time logics disappear from their horizon completely. Only a few like Rajamouli, remain grounded and balance creativity with conformity.
Regina Cassandra performed well in her role as a police officer. Nivetha Thomas attracted with her acting and also hilarious one-liners. Regina and Nivetha appealed to all with their screen presence. Bhanuchander looked good as the trainer in the police academy. Raghu Babu, 30 Years Prudhvi, Sudarshan, Chamak Chandra, Satya, Rajiv Kumar Aneja, and Lahari Sahari performed according to their roles.
Richard Prasad's cinematography is good. Viplav Nyshadham's editing could have been far better. Mikey McCleary's background music is just average. Dialogues are loud and over the top. Production values are ok.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Saakini Daakni actresses Regina Cassandra and Nivetha Thomas underwent intense training and sweated it out for the crime thriller. They pinned all their hopes on the Korean remake expert Sudheer Varma. But all their dreams got dashed as into the story, Sudheer Varma for some reason seems to have lost interest in the project. He failed with his story, screenplay, and direction stuffing everything with mediocre and routine elements. In the process, he ignored the emotional scenes which play a key part. Altogether,Saakini Daakni is a failed attempt to score a hit with the Korean remake. Taking into consideration all these aspects, Cinejosh goes with a 1.5 rating for Saakini Daakni.