Aadi Sai Kumar is renowned for his action entertainers and he is now set to thrill viewers with his film Shanmukha. The film directed by Shanmugam Sappani is releasing on 21 March 2025. Shanmukha OTT rights are yet to be inked and the final details will be revealed by the makers at a later date.
Shanmukha's story is all about the mysteries involved in the ancient temples and the journey of a police officer and a research student while unraveling them. SI Karthi Vallabhan (Aadi Saikumar) who loses his gun while busting a drug racket reluctantly agrees to help Sara Maheswar (Avika Gor), a journalist who lands from Bengaluru to Hyderabad to complete the mysterious missing girls and the suicides of their boyfriends .
Where this leads to and how it is connected to Viganda (Chiag Jani) form the interesting part of the narration.
Aadi Saikumar played the role of the SI effortlessly. He played such roles earlier and it turned out to be a cakewalk for him. He did not do much hardork and his acting talent is not tested.. He looked perfect in the role of the police officer and came up with suitable expressions and emotions.
Avika Gor who played the female lead role failed to impress with her looks and expressions. She looked pale and looked like a patient. Chirag Jani is ok with his performance and Aditya Om failed to make an impact. Director Shanmugam tested the patience of all playing the role of Bullet Raju. Krishnudu, Ariyana Glory,CVL.Narasimha Rao,Chitram Srinu, Jabardasth Dorababu performed according to their roles.
Shanmukha story is penned by Shanmugam Sappani. He tried to add mythical and devotional elements to the crime investigation. Though the idea excites, he failed completely in his execution with the silly story, senseless script and screenplay, and direction. Shanmugam tried to tell something exciting but he looked confused on how to show it on screen and ended up testing the patience of the movie lovers.
He promoted the film as a devotional and spiritual thriller but the story lacked the devotional and spiritual thriller. One wonders how men practicing witchcraft and showing them on the screen turns the project genre into a devotional thriller. The scenes lacked cohesion and the crimes also do not thrill and create fear among viewers and infact viewers did not get emotionally charged at any time to the story.
With the repetitive scenes and incohesive screenplay, he ended up irritating viewers and after the climax, he keeps on dragging the film with the unnecessary devotional song. The first half ends in a predictable way and the second half nose dives completely and from there, no effort saved the film at anytime.
Altogether, Shanmukha turns out to be silly spiritual thriller. Aadi Sai Kumar played the typical police officer role and director Shanumgam Sappineni who planned to thrill the viewers failed completely with his story, screenplay and direction. A little fine-tuning of the script and the racy screenplay would have improved the final output. Considering all these elements Cinejosh goes with a 2 rating for Shanmukha.