Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu Review: A story with big potential that’s let down by its writing

2/5

Story: A man working at an architecture firm and a young intern at the firm fall in love. One day, as the man enters the woman’s house to surprise her, he gets tangled up in a crime, and is framed as the prime suspect. The events that follow and how he escapes makes up the rest of the movie. 

Review: Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu is a half-cooked movie that ends up leaving plots halfway to form a romantic thriller and failing to solidify as either one. The movie follows Arun (Sushanth) and his friends as they walk into a showroom to purchase his first bike. With the head salesman being an old school friend, Arun lets him in on why he needs to bike, despite not knowing how to ride one. With a majority of the first half being one big romantic flashback, the movie seems like a romantic comedy. What it fails to do is establish or take care of its subplots. We get a glimpse of Arun’s family drama, and his relationship with his childhood friend Puli (Priyadarshi), but neither goes anywhere, as it is forgotten as fast as it is told. 

With the first half being a romantic tale we’ve seen before, the movie starts to bore you at one point. With a bunch of comedy stars cast, it looks to pull off a few laughs throughout, and just might succeed at some point. These actors do an acceptable job, in what genuinely seems like moments where they are given the freedom to explore. But even with the comedy, the first half is hard to sit through, with everything from unexplored subplots to editing mistakes that are too easy to notice. 

The second half of the movie takes a jump from a romantic comedy to a thriller. As the hero ventures into the house of his lover, who has a dangerous brother who rules the colony, in a bid to surprise her, he parks his bike in front of a ‘No Parking’ board. As he follows to tap the sign board on his way up, this sums up the numerous moments and dialogues which feel forced throughout the movie. 

The second stretch of the movie is as obvious as it is suspenseful. As Arun ends up at the neighbours house instead of his lovers, you know something or the other is about to happen. If you have even the slightest knack at guessing movie plots, you walk straight into the events that unfold next. But even with all that takes place, the movie feels to either grab the attention of the sympathy of the audience. Even with all the plot twists and action sequences that the movie brews up in the second half, you still might just want the movie to end. As everything unfolds very cinematically towards the end with the hero’s plans and schemes working out just as intended, the movie probably has lost you by this point.  

Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu is not well written, from the characters who look half baked to some of the scenes and dialogues that you feel are there just to get an easy reaction out of the viewer. None of the characters get a life of their own, with every detail lost in the script’s failure to help deliver them on screen. Even when Arun’s friendship and family history with Puli is pivotal to the story, we get as talking about Royal Enfield as much as establishing or rooting this relationship on screen. The music and background score are poorly used, with the songs popping out of mid-air even for an Indian romantic comedy. The one shaky shot establishing the workplace that we see in the movie is a good example of relating the screenplay and even the whole movie to.

Verdict: Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu is a movie that aims big, but fails to deliver a thriller that can get the audience hooked. Poor writing and acting that sometimes seems out of place, will not only fail to engage the viewer, but could test their patience. With only some of the humour from a few actors hitting the spot, one could only wonder what the movie could have been.