Funky Review

Even offscreen, director-writer Anudeep K V has a fanbase of his own. His shy, awkward, almost boyish personality and his knack for making everyday phrases seem delightfully absurd has earned him such a cult following that there are whistles in the theatre when he makes a cameo in other comedy films. It is easy to spot Anudeep's brand of dry wordplay and his flat delivery in the characters he has created, from Jogipet Srikanth of his breakout hit Jathi Rathnalu (2021) to Anbu in Prince (2022), his not-so-succesful follow-up.

Funky may be Anudeep's most self-referential work yet. It follows a film director trying to wrap his last schedule while clashing with his exasperated producers. Vishwak Sen plays Komal, the debutant director who has happily exceeded the budget. Naresh and Kayadu Lohar play the father-daughter duo who are the producers of Komal's film. Despite the setup, amazingly, Funky seems to have little to no stakes.

We never learn what Komal's film is about, just as we don't really understand what Anudeep's film is about, at least not until the final minutes of the final act. Until then, Komal and Chitra play the cat-and-mouse producer-director game until they inevitably start to fall for each other.

There are plenty of disappointments with Funky. Most of these are ironically also now considered to be trademarks of Anudeep's films. The film's plot and characters are secondary to its quips and punchlines. The movie's momentum depends solely on the steady volley of jokes, so it is like a three-act standup comedy in which the bits often fall flat.

This kind of "storytelling" passed muster in Jathi Rathnalu, thanks to three very talented comedic actors and the freshness of the Anudeep's voice then. But in Funky, the style feels stale. You can often predict the punchline - usually some word play, or some twist of the phrasing. With Vishwak Sen being the only central comic actor, and plenty of unseasoned actors filling small roles such as the group of guys who play the assistant directors, the jokes land only sporadically.

Sampath Raj playing a financier at odds with Komal has a good running joke over his character's name "GK". But except for a needle-drop moment, he doesn't quite work as a goofily villainous character. Even the ever-reliable Muralidhar Goud who plays in a single-scene role is uncharacteristically off-key. One of film's few revelations is Eeshwari Rao, who enacts Komal's mother.

Funky is at its best when the humour emerges organically from context rather than random quips. The sharpest moments poke fun at the filmmaking process and its many idiosyncrasies. There is a good running bit about inflated budgets. Producer Dil Raju makes a cameo (which works way better than Funky's producer Naga Vamshi's cameo) in which he advises Komal to shoehorn any damn mythology into his next film, because that is trend of Telugu films these days. The film could have used more such humorous truth-telling. But it is just a lot of mildly funny banter, untethered from the story or its characters.

Funky's romance track is an embarrassment; in fact, romance continues to be one of Anudeep's weak points as a writer and director. Even when his heroes and heroines are full-grown adults like Komal and Chitra are, their romances play out teenager-y. Like the scenes where Komal proposes to Chitra in a voice recording. It is juvenile. And the leads have little chemistry, especially with Kayadu Lohar acting on the more dramatic side, and facing some dubbing troubles.

Bheems Ceciroleo's songs feels as cursory as the sudden, meticulously-choreographed fight sequence that appears out of nowhere. If Funky did overshoot its budget, these pointless interludes are likely where those extra lakhs were spent.

The biggest takeaway from Funky is that Anudeep's comedic style hasn't evolved in the five years since Jathi Rathnalu, and if anything now seems to have become a handicap. Anudeep will probably never make a "serious" film, but it remains to be seen if he can weave his comedy into something more substantial than reel fodder.