Funky Movie Review

After a major debacle in his career, Vishwak Sen is back on the big screen exactly a year later with Funky. KV Anudeep has much to prove after his bilingual Prince did not meet expectations. Backed by Sithara Entertainments and featuring recent sensation Kayadu Lohar as the heroine, will this movie be a redemption for both of them? Let’s see.

Setup:

Komal (Vishwak Sen) is an aspiring director struggling to complete his debut film within budget. The producer of Manchi Productions (Naresh) is stressed as the movie needs 4 more crores to be finished. Then comes his daughter Chitra (Kayadu), who promises him that she will make Komal complete the film within one crore. All the chaos that follows, and how the relationship develops between director Komal and the producer’s daughter, forms the rest of the story.

Technicalities:

Suresh Sarangam’s cinematography is decent and sufficient for the kind of setup the movie has. Editing by Navin Nooli is disastrous. The whole movie feels like a mashup of comedy scenes. The natural flow is missing, and it is hard to stay engaged in the proceedings. For this kind of comedy to land, editing has to be crisp but not rushed, which is clearly lacking here. Bheems Ceciroleo delivered a very average album for this movie. The songs didn’t click much. Even the mass number he is known for did not land well. The background score also does not add much value and feels routine.

Sithara Entertainments, known for their production values, have delivered what is required for this film. The story by Anudeep KV and Mohan Sato is quite thin and does not really have a strong conflict point to look forward to. The screenplay should have been smoother and more energetic for such an entertainer to carry the audience’s mood, but that was missing. Anudeep adapts a similar style from his previous films here as well, but he could not repeat the magic he created in Jathiratnalu or, to some extent, in Prince.

Performances:

Vishwak Sen tries his best in an innocent and out-of-mind role designed in Anudeep’s style. Some parts work and some do not. Maybe instead of completely imitating the director’s style, if he had adapted it into his own style, it would have felt fresher on screen. But that was not the case here.

Kayadu Lohar looks charming and beautiful throughout the movie. However, her character does not have any wow factor to talk about. It is a run-of-the-mill daughter of a wealthy man role. She is not used effectively to generate comedy either.

Cameos by Dil Raju, Naga Vamsi, Harish Shankar, Anudeep, and Kalyan Shankar are okayish. Though they received crowd cheers as soon as they appeared on screen, the cameos did not really entertain much. Other actors like Naresh, Sampath, Eswari Rao, Aditi Bhavaraju, and others are mostly part of random gags here and there.

Positives:

Few one-liners
Some laughs here and there
Production Values

Negatives:

Editing
Artificial setup for comedy
Boring proceedings
No real conflict to look out for
Routine characters

Analysis:

Yes, the makers prepared everyone by saying this is just another Anudeep film with no story, no screenplay, no heavy emotions, and so on. They promised it would entertain you for 90 percent of the film. As an audience, everyone just wanted pure entertainment from this film. But they did not achieve what they promised.

The first half starts directly with a series of comedy punches, followed by the introduction of the lead characters, and continues with one-liner-based humor for the rest of the time. It ends without any twist or conflict. It just moves in a flow of comedic errors by the hero. The love track is decent to an extent but does not really create the feel required. Most scenes feel artificial and seem to exist just for the sake of generating laughs.

The second half starts in a similar tone. Towards the end, it takes a slightly satirical angle on family values and emotions. Again, there is no proper flow of scenes, just a series of random events. A few jokes land here and there. Almost all the characters look like they are trying too hard to generate laughs. Every other dialogue is a punch or joke, which does not land all the time.

Overall, Funky ends up as a big disappointment if you are expecting a Jathiratnalu-level or a perfect Anudeep film. If you are okay with some senseless punches and time-pass comedy, this might work for you to an extent.

Bottom Line: Tries hard, Entertains less.

Rating: 2/5