Meter review: Kiran Abbavaram’s empty heroics can’t salvage this crass, outdated cop drama

1/5

Story:

Venkat Rathnam is an honest constable whose career doesn’t progress to great heights owing to his corrupt superiors. He pins hopes on his son Arjun Kalyan to join the police office and make a difference. Arjun, who neither wants to be a cop nor disappoint his father, tries every trick in the book to fail his selection tests. Much to his shock, he’s appointed as an SI and confronts a crooked politician Kantham Byreddy. 

Review:

There’s something wrong with filmdom when every second industry aspirant seeks stardom over the need to be a good actor. With relentless PR, social media frenzy, the idea is to expand markets, climb up the ranks as quickly as possible even if the foundation is fragile. As harsh as it may seem, Kiran Abbavaram has taken all the wrong cues from his successes and Meter is good proof of it. 

The film takes the audiences for granted and believes the very presence of Kiran Abbavaram can salvage its fate. In the second cop avatar of his career, Kiran barely strains his acting muscles and is utterly casual with his dialogue delivery. The absence of effort shows when he struggles to hold even a single sequence together. 

Meter needed someone with a larger-than-life appeal for a viewer to look beyond its flaws. More than realism, believability is the bare minimum you’d expect in a commercial entertainer. In its desperation to project the heroism of the protagonist, the film keeps finding newer ways to embarrass itself. The father-son drama, which should’ve been the lifeline of the story, is its weakling. An issue as serious as acid attacks is milked for comic relief.

The director reduces the police force and the bureaucrats to a joke. The home minister of a state bashes up a CM like a local goon but is ironically terrified by a newly appointed cop who doesn’t bow down to him. The comedy track with Saptagiri and the romance could’ve been the saviour, but the filmmaker doesn’t take his execution seriously and adds ridiculous subplots sans any value.

The interval twist brings some momentum to the proceedings but the film doesn’t utilise it in its favour and loses steam in the post-intermission portions. There’s no attempt to tell the story sincerely or entertain and the narrative is filled with a vague bunch of sequences, songs with meaningless dialogues and pointless plot twists. It’s an ugly mix of old-fashioned 70s drama and the crassness of the 2020s. 

The phrase ‘ a movie is only as good as its villain’ rings true here and the resolution of the conflict in the climax is as laughable as it can get. No character is etched well - it’s as if the female lead, villain and the protagonist’s father are strongly competing for a ‘terrible role of the film’ trophy. The perversion in the cinematography during Athulyaa Ravi’s segments is disgusting, to put it mildly.

It’s high time Kiran Abbavaram focuses on his basics before taking the massy route or aiming for market expansion - he has a lot of ground to cover in terms of performance, comedy timing and dialogue delivery. Slow-motion shots, ego-boosting one-liners and parroting the same old tale of being an actor without any Godfather in the industry will not help him every time.

Athulyaa Ravi’s Telugu debut is a disappointment; the film stoops to an all-time low in how it treats its female character as an object. Vinay Varma is too good a talent to waste time in films like Meter. Posani Krishna Murali continues to repeat himself and the impact is only waning with every film; the same holds true in the case of Saptagiri and Prudhvi Raj too. Among the songs, Chammak Chammak Pori is catchy. 

Verdict:

Meter is a dreadful cop saga where nothing works, from Kiran Abbavaram’s empty heroics to a terrible story that doesn’t have good drama, entertainment value or strong performances. Athulyaa Ravi in her Telugu debut is reduced to a prop and the antagonist, an unintentional comedian. The two-hour runtime remains the only respite for the viewer.