Satyadev Kancharana made a name for himself choosing interesting roles and different plots. He is now coming to entertain with his upcoming flick crazily titled Zebra. The film directed by Eashwar Karthic stars Priya Bhavani Shankar and is releasing on 22 November 2024. Let us see whether Satyadev's Zebra has success shades.
Zebra story is all about online fraudsters and how affected people deal with them. The life of Surya (Satyadev Kancharana), A young customer relations manager in a Bank takes a drastic turn when he comes into contact with Aadi (Daali Dhananjaya). Where this leads to and how it is connected to Swathi (Priya Bhavani Shankar) and others form rest of the narration.
Satyadev performed well in the role of the customer relations officer. He showed various emotions and expressions according to the situation and elevated the scenes with his performance. This performance from Satyadev standout in his career. Daali Dhananjaya came up with an impactful performance however he did not suit the role of the powerful antagonist.
Priya Bhavani Shankar looked pretty and came up with a decent performance. She excelled in the comedy scenes impressing everyone. Much to the disappointment of all Sunil and Satyaraj's roles aren't developed to the core though they came up with good performances. Amrutha Iyenkar is completely wasted and she did not get good screen presence to show her talent.
Satya entertained with his hilarious antics. Suresh Chandra Menon, Jeniffer Piccinato & Ravin Makhija did not suite their roles at all. Others like Temper Vamsi, Sameer, Rama Raju, Surya, Usha Sri, Deepthi performed according to their roles.
Zebra story is readied by Eashvar Karthic is an interesting one. Eashvar Karthic came up with a story to highlight the banking frauds. He came up with an interesting plot and starts the narration in a gripping manner. He continues in the same tempo but in his quest to attract the masses and commercialise the proceedings he added unnecessary scenes and dialogues that impacted the flow of the narration.
The story and the idea looked great on the paper and he tried in the right earnest to tell the story in a honest manner. The screenplay and direction is good and scenes are interesting with few twists and turns. However the missing logics and the unwanted comedy scenes and other elements affected the film in a big way.
The screenplay is convoluted and it ends of confusing viewers with many plots and subplots and the entry of numerous characters. The end of the first half sets the stage for the interesting second half but here the too much technicalities leave viewers blinking at each other. Few of the scenes drags in the second half before the pre climax and climax increases the interest levels.
Ravi Basrur's music failed to make an impression. His background score also did not elevate the scenes much to the disappointment of all. The cinematography of Satya Ponmar is fine and showed the scenes in a natural and impressive manner. The Anil Krish's editing could have been better as there are many drags in the film. Production values are good.
Altogether, Zebra turns out to be a decent crime thriller on banking fraud. Satyadev came up with good performance and the director Eashvar Karthic aided with an interesting idea, got the optimum out of the star cast. A little fine-tuning of the script, doing way with the illogical scenes and redundant elements, the film would have made an even greater impact. Considering all these aspects Cinejosh goes with a 2.25 rating for Zebra.