Movie: Ice Cream 2
Rating: 1/5
Banner: Bhimavaram Talkies
Cast: J. D. Chakravarthy, Naveena, Tanikella Bharani, Jeeva and others
Music: Satya Kashyap
Cinematography: Anji
Producer: Tummalapalli Rama Satyanarayana
Direction: Ram Gopal Varma
Release Date: November 21, 2014
After the first version of Ice Cream was widely panned by critics, Ram Gopal Varma vowed to make Ice Cream 2, 3, 4, 5… and many more sequels to the film. So, he has kept his promise and here comes the sequel to Ice Cream. Let’s check out how the film has come up:
Story:
A team of film-makers fail to get a producer for their feature film. So, they decide to impress the producers by making a short film. This takes the group of friends (Naveena, Nandu, Siddu, Dhanraj and others) to a dilapidated chemical factory. Here, they bump into a group of thieves (JD Chakravarthy, Jeeva and others) who rob a bank and are on the run. The bank robbers keep the friends tied up as they don’t want to be identified later. Meanwhile, a killer starts killing each of them one by one.
Artistes’ Performances:
Almost all the artistes end up looking and acting scared for even small sounds, so there is nothing much to dissect their performances.
As for the senior actor JD Chakravarthy who has done some memorable roles in Ram Gopal Varma’s films in the past, seems to have agreed to play the role of a strangely dressed man who goes about hushing the rest of the cast only for old times’ sake.
Technical Excellence:
Due to budget constraints, the film does not meet the quality expectations. In fact, one is reminded of shows like Neralu Ghoralu in terms of its execution. The flow cam and flow sound technology worked better in Ice Cream than in the sequel.
Though after watching both the films, one is not sure of Ram Gopal Varma’s motive behind making such movies, but one thing is clear. He seems to want to make films minus story and narration by focusing on a few murders and adding high decibel sounds to thrill the audiences who still go to theatres to watch his style of films.
Well, it goes without saying that such efforts are bound to fail. So, Ice Cream 2 joins the list of films like Dongala Mutha and Ice Cream.
Highlights:
The duration is 90 minutes.
Drawbacks:
Those very 90 minutes!
Analysis:
The film is about a group of friends who want to make a short film to showcase their talent. Well, in Varma’s case, he wants to endorse the efficiency of flow cam and flow sound technology.
Though it is called a sequel, there is no similarity between Ice Cream and Ice Cream 2 barring the fact that both of them don’t have stories. In fact, the films progress without any plot in both instances.
On a normal day, a 90-minute thriller will have a taut script which is bound to have the audiences on the edge of their seats. But Varma tries to show that it is indeed possible to make a film of 90 minute duration without any plot and that it can also have an interval.
Till interval, the identity of the killer is not revealed. But in the second half, the killer goes on a murder spree and kills the entire cast one after the other. And Varma seems to have realized that if he concentrated only on the hero and heroine, the film would have ended in 40 minutes. So, to stretch it a bit, he added the gang of thieves and they join the list of people being hacked to death.
Also, in a tame attempt to scare the audiences hook or crook, Varma has added very loud background score. But the effort boomerangs as you don’t feel the pinch when all the characters are killed one after the other. In fact, you almost anxiously wait for all the characters to be killed so that you can go home.
Well, we have to confess that Varma did put in serious efforts to match the quality of Ice Cream.
For all those who criticized Ice Cream vehemently, Varma seems to have taken up the challenge to make them say that Ice Cream was any day better than Ice Cream 2.
But Ice Cream 2 scores on one front. Instead of running the camera all over the heroine and showing her bathing and changing, talking on the phone and imagining ghosts, Ice Cream 2 shows a killer out to kill all the characters.
Usually, films are segmented into various genres like comedy, action, horror, thriller, etc. But Varma being the maverick he is, he has created a new genre and that is Ice Cream. Do we need to say more?
Bottomline: One Step Further
(Venkat can be reached at [email protected] or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)
