Nakshatram Review

It's a lousy film. You all know that already. And this is a late review - we wonder if the film will be playing in the theatres by the time this review goes up. We have little to no idea on what to write at this moment. After some deliberation, we supposed all the people who are uninterested in this film may have questions that they wouldn't care to ask. This reviewer will now exercise his imagination in identifying some of these Fully Unasked Questions (FUQs) and respond to them in Answers of Strict Solemnity (ASS).

FUQ 1: What's the plot of Nakshatram?
ASS: On the face of it it's about Sundeep Kishan wanting to become a cop and Sai Dharam Teja being a supercop and Prakash Raj collecting a remuneration for turning up on the sets and wearing a cop's uniform. There's also Sai Teja's driver and this driver's daughter Regina who is a junior artiste and is in love with Sundeep Kishan whose mother insists on her son being a cop like his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. Before we forget, there's a thief Pragya who steals mobile phones and does parkour but later is not a thief but a cop hunting for a bombs-and-drugs-supplier who is good friends with Prakash Raj's son.

Hmm... if we have to be honest, we'll tell you they were really just plotting to mentally decapacitate all the single digit number of viewers in the hall.

FUQ 2: Single digit?
ASS: Seven of us left the hall. We didn't know if we had to check for corpses.

FUQ 3: But seriously, wasn't there something to do with drugs in the plot?
ASS: Now, that's a thought. If the SIT watched Nakshatram they'd likely let go of Puri Jagannadh and go after Krishna Vamsi. Their obvious line of questioning would be how on earth he could have made a film so loudly and glitzily disorienting without having been under the influence of some hallucinogenic elements.

FUQ 4: Okay. So the production values and so on are all bad?
ASS: Bad, you see, is of multiple kinds. Sometimes it's just plain bad because there's nothing of value in the mix. But at other times, even when the things in the mix are of good quality, the mixie can mess it up for you. The music may be okay and the cinematography interesting and the performances earnest, but the end effect is like having an ADHD kid explain the script of The Transformers.

FUQ 5: The performances are good, then?
ASS: Good, you see, is of multiple kinds. Sometimes it's good when you can watch a performance and believe the actor. But at other times, everything is so loud and garish and mixed up, and you start feeling sorry for the actors who have no control over what they are doing because their director has no control over what he's doing. So the end effect is you tend to be sympathetic to them and think they're good enough.

FUQ 5: The women? They have meaty roles?
ASS: They have roles, yes. Meat, yes. Meaty roles? No. Meat rolls? The rest of this ASS shall be terminated as it may not comply with fullhyd.com's standards.

FUQ 6: I understand how the film is mediocre from a critic's standpoint, but my only question is if it's good for the common audience? Like, would I enjoy it if I walked in with zero expectations?
ASS: Let's get this correct. You can't have expectations for Nakshatram because try as you might it'll go beneath your expectations. Secondly, we're all in the same boat here irrespective of whether we are critics or common viewers. Unless we consider the uncommonly critical RGV (who congratulated Krishna Vamsi for being on the "right path"), there's possibly not a soul who wouldn't feel like someone's stepping on their oxygen supply.

FUQ 7: Thighs? Has this film got thighs?
ASS: Yes. Please refer to FUQ 5.

FUQ 8: But why do talented directors do this? What happens to them?
ASS: This reviewer was plagued with this very question and is contemplating a Ph D in neuropsychology to understand this phenomenon. But we understand that we may not be allowed to rip open their skulls and poke electrodes into their brains. Worse, in case we manage to get there, we may have the temptation to not sew those heads back again and save ourselves from films such as Nakshatram. Which is why we may have to let go of the Ph D and this question.

FUQ 9: So, the verdict is?
ASS: If you haven't understood it yet, maybe you deserve to watch this film.