Movie: Officer
Rating: 1.5/5
Banner: Company
Cast: Nagarjuna, Myra Sarin, Ajay, Shayaji Shinde, Feroz, Baby Kaavya and others
Music: Ravi Shankar
Cinematography: Rahul Penmatsa
Editor: Anwar Ali, R Kamal
Producer: Ram Gopal Varma, Sudheer Chandra
Written and directed by: Ram Gopal Varma
Release date: June 1, 2018
Nagarjuna and Ram Gopal Varma, the duo that gave us classic Shiva in 1980, has joined hands after a gap of two decades for their latest cop drama, ‘Officer’. Their fourth outing has been making news.
Now that the movie has hit the screens, let’s review the film…
Story:
Shivaji Rao (Nagarjuna), a police officer in Hyderabad, is sent to Mumbai. He is in charge of special investigation that is probing if Narayana Pasari is involved with mafia activities. Pasari, a famous Mumbai police officer known for eliminating mafia from Mumbai.
Will Shivaji succeed in finding the truth? What problems would he face?
Artistes’ Performances:
Nagarjuna has approached the role of a police officer in different way. The characterisation is a bit unique but the novelty wears off after few scenes and Nag looks tired as the tiresome action proceeds on.
Ajay as his colleagues is okay. Myra Sarin's role is weak and the new actress also doesn't impress much.
Bollywood actor who played the role of Pasari is impressive. Baby Kaavya is very expressive and she is adorable.
Technical Excellence:
The film is shot entirely in Mumbai. This has provided us chance to have glimpse of some good visuals.
The film has two songs are okay. Camera work is decent. Dialogue writings are weak.
Highlights:
Nagarjuna
Drawback:
Predictable story
Boring narration
Slow pace
Dull action
Analysis
Nag and RGV teaming up for the fourth time after long gap has stirred interest. Moreover, RGV used these new lines “Cops were never this scary” and “Experience New Sound” in the promotions hinting that he has weaved something new.
Sadly, the movie disappoints completely with its hollow script, shallow scenes, and with boring shootouts and drab conflict.
Cops are not at all scary but the narration scares us a wee bit. Comparatively, this is better handled movie from RGV in the recent times. Yet, it also joins the ranks of badly-made RGV movies.
Bad police vs Good police theme has been told many times in Indian movies. Ram Gopal Varma has added another layer to this theme by making bad cop as secret mafia don.
A police officer who became famous for eliminating mafia himself turning mafia don is interesting angle but Ram Gopal Varma's idea doesn’t fully translate well onto the screen from the paper.
His style of narration has not changed much. He has repeated same scenes with different camera angles, shoot-outs, ‘kallu-maama’ kind of song, and lengthy action stunts.
In the film, the cops keep saying that mafia is completely eliminated from Mumbai and the city is now much calm and safer. Even though, the mafia is out, Ram Gopal Varma is still stuck in this genre of mafia-police movie and rehashing the same ideas with little changes.
It seems on the insistence of Nagarjuna he has added a song on father – daughter and some sentiment scenes but they are hardly effective. The girl who played his daughter has come up with good acting but the situations lack dhum.
The conversation between the police officers (Nagarjuna and Shayaji’s introduction scene is one example) sounds so silly. Even the track between Nagarjuna and Myra is half-baked.
All in all, RGV has nothing new to offer with his “Officer”. The officer is neither scary, nor angrier. Another disappointing film from RGV.
Bottom-line: Dull Officer
