Meter Movie Review

1.75/5

2 Hr 7 Min   |   Action - Drama   |   07-04-2023


Cast - Kiran Abbavaram, Athulya Ravi, Dhanush Pawan, Sapthagiri and others

Director - Ramesh Kadhuri

Producer - Chiranjeevi, Hemalatha Pedamallu

Banner - Mythri Movie Makers, Clap Entertainments

Music - Sai Kartheek

Kiran Abbavaram is trying very hard to build an image as an actor in Telugu cinema. His efforts are visible with his idea of trying to do various movies that are different from each other. But it’s always the right stories that make your efforts worthwhile and bring you closer to the audience. Now let’s see whether his latest movie ‘Meter’ accompanies him on that path or not.

What Is It About?

The story is about an energetic youngster, Arjun Kalyan (Kiran Abbavaram), who ends up becoming a SI. But he loathes the job and tries his best to get dismissed from the department. Things didn’t exactly the work way he wishes them to be. With some unexpected circumstances, he becomes famous in the same department, during this he comes across a tussle with Kantam Baireddy (Dhanush Pawan). What’s the tussle, how did a reckless SI, hating his job becomes renown and redeems himself makes up for the rest of the movie.

Performances :

Kiran Abbavaram as S.I Arjun Kaylan looks earnest in some emotional and comedy scenes, his face has this believability that our hearts could empathize with. But in a story that is so all over the place and told innumerable times, he looks clueless for the most part. His act in action looks forced, and he should really work on dialogue delivery part. It’s getting monotonous to hear now with the same pale pitch.

Atulya Ravi fails to impress. She looks cute in a few moments, but in the performance part where she has to bond with the hero, her enactment looked silly. Saptagiri continues to disappoint, his comedy looks outdated even for the early 2000s.

Dhanush Pawan as baddie Kantam Baireddy makes his presence felt with his masculine body. But the role is a cliched Telugu cinema villain, that didn’t gives him enough meat to shine. The performances of the rest of the cast were ordinary.

Technicalities :

For a movie backed by the great Mythri Movie makers, the production values for this film look substandard. It gets reflected in technical departments, the cinematography by Venkat C Dileep was underwhelming, and the movie never really “Looks” great to rave at some shots that relax our eyes.

At times his camera angels seem weird, also the DI was a bit problematic. In some scenes the movie feels quite lurid. Music by Sai Kartheek is forgettable, and so is his score. Editing by Karthik Srinivas is adequate. The slo-mos in the fights looked terrible. They could’ve been edited better, given how action frenzy/friendly the movie badly wants to be.

Thumbs Up

Kiran Abbavaram’s act in a few scenes
Dhanush Pawan’s presence

Thumbs Down

Cinematography
Direction
Music

Analysis

Ramesh Kadhuri chose a beaten-to-death template story. He never really focuses on garnishing it with entertaining treatment. The writing looked like a mish-mash of umpteen cop dramas that we have seen umpteen times.

With regard to the flow in the scenes, one can’t complain given the commercial mass masala genre but one expects some x-factor in a scene to hold his attention, and that’s where this movie bites the dust. Neither the jokes nor the emotions land in a scene. They are so poorly written, one could keep wondering what made Kiran accept this story.

Even Ramesh Kadhuri’s direction looked pretty bland. Except for Kiran, the director never captures an interesting performance from other character artists, and the composition of shots is also not exciting.

It feels exhausting watching Kiran Abbavaram in Action scenes, not like he didn’t get the “action persona”. He has it , but it’s the director who never really taps it let alone bringing it out.

Bottomline: No Matter

Rating: 1.75/5

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