'SPARK', bankrolled and directed by Deaf Frog Productions, marks the debut of actor-writer Vikranth. Touted to be a thriller with commercial elements, the film hit the cinemas this Friday. In this section, we are going to review the latest Box Office release.
Plot:
Jay (Vikranth) finds himself in trouble when he is accused of shadowing young women and killing them. His girlfriend Ananya (Rukshar Dhillon), too, has fallen victim.
Meanwhile, Lekha (Mehreen) is in love with Aarya (Vikranth, again), her 'Kalala Rajakumarudu'. Is Aarya none other than Jay's doppelganger? Or, is he the same individual who is playing a mind game with Lekha? Who is responsible for a series of murder-cum-suicide deaths in different places within a short span of time? Answers to these questions are explored in the second hour.
Post-Mortem:
In one of the early scenes of 'SPARK', a future Nobel laureate (Suhasini Maniratnam) is shown excitedly speaking at a science conference about that exact thing that characters in this movie don't have: Brain. In our films, if someone talks about the limitless capabilities of the human brain, it means the film is trying to fool the audience into believing that it is brainy. Without such a scene, there is no way you would believe that the writers and their characters know of the existence of the allegedly relevant organ.
This is the kind of film where the characters are either saving the Planet or hurling insults that dark-skinned comedians (Satya and Vennela Kishore are happy to take blows. Amen!). There is no in-between.
Nearly seventy minutes into the film, 'SPARK' wants you to be clueless as to what the fuss is all about. The film derives a perverse pleasure from keeping the audience in the dark. Someone who sounds like Bigg Boss' cousin is making random individuals behave like possessed, hypnotized creatures. But the film is not even 0.5% as intelligent as it thinks it is. After Suhasini's animated harangue about the capabilities of the human brain, it is clear that the antagonist of the movie is an evil genius. And we all know the day job of evil geniuses in our thrillers - they sit inside something that resembles a lab, fart some mumbo-jumbo for 69 seconds and invent a theoretically impossible item.
Despite the monumental stakes at play, the male protagonist (debutant Vikranth is stiff) appears stoic as if he is a repeat saviour who has already saved the Planet quite a few times in the past. There is no urgency in his body language. There is no energy in the action sequences, which confuse Hollywoodian costumes/aesthetics with a high-octane vibe.
By the time the antagonist reveals his cards, you are found scratching the one thing the film pretends to respect: Brain. Hesham Abdul Wahab's songs keep your brain from exploding.
Closing Remarks:
A hospital where a lot of drama takes place in this film has this tagline: 'Rescue Treat Control'. Exactly what this reviewer needed after watching this crappy piece.
