Swaroop King

Swaroop King
Title Image

Saturday 11 January 2014

1:NENOKKADINE REVIEW

We all have illusions. We all think and deduce, act and remember, and our memories form an integral part of our intellectual being. We so deeply depend on them that our entire understanding of our own life depends on what we remember and what we see. Our mind fills the gap left by what we cannot see, remember and understand with its own illusuons.  The protagonist in 1:Nenokkadine also has illusions. But his ones are visual. Rather than filling the gaps, they play with his actual senses.  Gowtham, a rock star has a rare psychological disorder where he cant differentiate between reality and illusion. His mind constructs whatever is missing from his life and tries to convince his conscious with stories comfortable for his logic to believe. And he falls for the trick. There lies the story. When he is told that he is being conned by his own mind, part of him agrees but something inside him whispers that his life is defined more by what his crippled memory says is true, than by what the psychological records prove.

A few minutes into the film, Gowtham murders a man and surrenders himself to the police. When the police search the spot for the dead body, they realise that not only themselves but Gowtham also is fooled by his mind. Gowtham assumes that someone killed his parents and is haunted by the fear that they are coming for him as well. The moment he discovers  he has this problem, he faces the bewildering challenge of differentiating truth from illusion. And Sukumar wants the audience to run along with Gowtham, in his shoes. Everytime the hero hangs between reality and illusion, it is a test for the audience also. Nenokkadine is not so much a thriller as it is a mystery. 

The first half of the film takes its own time to establish the plot. Usually psychological thrillers begin with a bang. Like a mysterious murder, and then the clues, questions and doubts start playing. This film right after the bang gives out its biggest revelation that Gowtham is seeing things from his mind, the question of whether his past is true or not still lingers. The rest of the film is all about his travel to his past, his identity, hurdled by his disorder. Sukumar in his greed to engage the mind of audience althrough the film, resorted to fool them sometimes if necessary. But thats what a psychological thriller is about. You are watching it more often from the point of Gowtham than from a third person. Thats why in the first fight you can clearly see Kelly Dorjee holding a gun rather than some mysterious man entering like a shadow. Then you get to know that he is just an imagination. The whole film follows this scheme. You have to think while running with the hero, follow all the scenes and investigate on your own, if you dont want to get lost in the confusion. For that you got to look at the other characters present in the location and observe. Perhaps the telugu audience have a problem with that. People beside me in the theatre began joking about whats true and whats not as they couldnt follow.  

Mahesh's performance is the highlight of the film. He showed all the emotions as precisely as a Mathematics gold medalist answers (a+b)2=?

Nenokkadine, as a story doesnt worry much about the so called commercial elements that the telugu audience popularly crave for. But the execution does.  A straight psycho-thriller story, devoid of any comedy tracks, grand entrance scenes, and powerful dialogues, written for a star hero whose fan following is on a phenomenal raise lately, is enough a sentence to sound the dare the makers have exhibited. Perhaps this has troubled the director a bit. So he inserted songs at unnecessary places and dampened his own pace. 

Another problem with the film is its length. I would have felt happy if the same film had ended a half an hour earlier. The purpose a thriller is to thrill. Any drop in the pace would betray the lack of any other entertaining elements. If the takeoff is slow, the flight should be racy. But both cannot be lagging. 

Will audience love this film? Most probably not.
Is this a bad film? No
Would I recommend this? 
If you are a fan of entertainment, skip it. If you are a fan of cinema, watch once.

P.S:- My heart skipped a few beats when Kriti Sanon asked "Am I hot?"
Yes she is.