Aadi Saikumar: Top Gear is the story of a cab driver that unfolds within a day

Aadi Saikumar is wrapping up a busy 2022 with the release of his road thriller Top Gear on December 30. Directed by K Shashikanth and produced by KV Sridhar Reddy, the film has him paired opposite Riya Suman. In a media interaction earlier this week, the director spilled the beans about the film and stated what made him say yes to it.

COVID-19 and a packed summer season was the reason I had so many releases in the same year, he said, while adding it has become very challenging for small films to find an apt release date. Top Gear is the story of a cab driver that unfolds in a day’s span and how a problem changes his life beyond his imagination. “I really liked the script.”

Top Gear, he believes, is a stylish title that represents the character’s situation in the film. He compares the director Shashikanth to a professor who has great clarity about his work and credits cinematographer Sai Sriram for his insights through the shoot. Reportedly, editor Prawin Pudi was all praise for the team while watching the footage.

The Crazy Fellow star doesn’t wish to label Top Gear a thriller, but a premise about a youngster stuck in a major problem. “I was impressed with the idea and half the battle for a film is won there. The screenplay is the lifeline of any film. All said and done, it’s hard to predict how would audience react to a film. I however wouldn’t want to do regular, commercial fares henceforth.”

The actor opines the idea of a commercial film has changed after the KGF franchise and a project would need a huge scale and canvas for him to say yes to a masala fare. On that note, he says, “The action sequences, composed by Prudhvi, are a major highlight for Top Gear. We shot for the scenes at 4 am and worked towards telling the story through the fights as well.”

Despite the major part of a story unfolding within a car, Aadi says the cinematographer and the art director have pulled all the stops to ensure a classy look to the film. He is particularly in awe of Harshavardhan Rameshwar for his background score. The film, however, has only one song sequence. The actor admits his desire to do realistic films but shares that the scripts that come to him are commercial fares, more often than not.

Top Gear will also have a Hindi release shortly and Aadi mentions that Riya Suman plays a brief but significant role in it. The actor, happy about the response to Crazy Fellow, Sasi on OTT, is confident that his web debut for ZEE5, Puli Meka, will surprise audiences.