Veera Simha Reddy

I know what I am signing up for whenever I am watching a movie like Veera Simha Reddy. I am there to see the larger than life characterization, ear crunching background music effects and a lot of goosebump moments. About 10-12 years ago when I still had the patience, I used to watch many of such South Indian movies in theatres. Off late, I just wait for such movies to show up on OTT and casually watch them for such moments. With NBK's movies these moments are taken up to a different notch. 2021's release Akhanda surprised me pleasantly and it was very refreshing to see that the movie had a crisp screenplay. This and some of the ridiculous (yet unique) goosebump clips from the theatre which I watched on Twitter made me decide to go and watch this film in the theatres. Also maybe I had too much time that weekend.

Veer Simha Reddy starts off quite energetically like typical NBK movies which involve him playing the dual role. The introduction of the 'mass' and 'dark' NBK character roars on the screen with a superb background score (I hope SS Thamans releases that song soon). However this film lacks the setup for such a great character introduction. There is no suspense or any significant events leading to it. Even the flashback story for this character isn't strong enough to justify the suspense and action. NBK suits very well for his look as Veera Simha Reddy but however it cannot be said the same for him playing the role of his son again. May be it is time for him to explore playing the only senior part and then giving up the junior lead to someone else in such movies so that his main character's impact gets better even if it is for a lesser time. The lack of a decent screenplay for many of the strong characters including Bhanumathi (played brilliantly by Varu Sarathkumar) lets this film down. There are many actors and characters in the movie but they all end up becoming less significant. Duniya Vijay looks and also acts menacing as the baddie but his character doesn't carry enough threat because of how it's written. Shruthi Hassan looks gorgeous as usual and Honey Rose gets to show off her beauty in a song as well.

Veera Simha Reddy had a very good potential to be a better NBK blockbuster but it falls short and how.