'Crrush' is a direct-to-streamer release on ZEE5. The Ravi Babu directorial is clearly targeted at the adult audience and is a strict no-no for those below the age of 18. In this section, we are going to tell you whether it is worth a watch.
Story
Ravi (Abhay Simha), Vamsi (Krishna Burugula), and Teju (Charan Sai) are intent on having sex before they can fly to the US, where they hope to befriend sex-ready American women with the experience they gain in India. Their attempts end up in a series of blunders, errors, and unexpected outcomes.
Performances
Ravi Babu is one of the few directors with a talent for extracting able performances from his actors. They look odd, their behaviour is crazy or eccentric. Yet, they are watchable because they perform well. But 'Crrush' is a different beast. The performances irritate you after a point. The lead actors are unidimensional and don't have much to offer.
The film is also failed by the wrong casting choices it makes. Ram Ravipalli and Sri Sudha Reddy, respectively, falter from the get-go. If the former doesn't look the part, the latter looks lost or disinterested. Ankita Manoj, among others, are okayish.
Technical aspects
Vaidhhy composes a couple of average songs, which are squandered away by the rootless screenplay. The background music is stuck in a time warp. This is not a YouTube web series or adult short; the BGM has no feature film vibes. N Sudhakar Reddy's camera work doesn't take the material seriously. It's as if the frames were not supposed to look decent.
Analysis
As you watch the 130-minutes-long adult comedy, you start looking for a sense of direction in the lives of the three men at the centre of the plot (not that the film has a plot). Writer-director Ravi Babu answers the question a good 20 minutes or so into the second half. We are forced to watch an alleged love story. Suddenly, the neighbourhood girl is wailing because she is not able to meet Ravi. We never understand when she even fell in love in the first place.
In the company of screenplay writer Satyanand, director Ravi Babu orchestrates a series of vacuous gags. At the end of the film, you are more likely to remember the 'banana' and the 'bat' than the silly sex jokes the film pushes so seriously.
It's insulting to realize that our filmmakers are yet to unshackle themselves from the itch to do gay 'comedy'. In the early 2000s, Ravi Babu's 'Allari' and 'Abbayilu Ammayilu' was seen as new-age teen comedies. Almost two decades later, he comes up with a film that doesn't understand the Instagram generation a wee bit. There are web series on Netflix that don't shy away from displaying full-frontal nudity. In this day and age, speaking in analogies to allude to the male organ and the female body is an affront to the sexual intelligence of your audience.
'Crrush' might still have worked had the second half got to the point. But even in the latter half, it keeps flooding us with the same lame sex jokes. In the final act, a couple of stretches are emotional. But it's hardly adequate to keep us invested in the lives of the ridiculous characters.
The love story between Ravi and Rupa cries for an emotional arc. The film doesn't know the difference between infatuation, lust and love. It crams everything in the world of adult comedy.
Closing Remarks
Ravi Babu should ideally give up on the adult comedy genre unless he has something sexy to offer to the Netflix generation. Even sex-themed YouTube videos have better thumbnails than the childish jokes this film thinks are sexy.
