‘Arjun S/O Vyjayanthi’, produced by NTR Arts and Ashoka Arts, was released today in theatres. In this section, we are going to review the latest box office release.
Plot:
Arjun Vishwanath (Nandamuri Kalyan Ram) is a Sarkar-type vigilante who takes on the drugs mafia in Vizag. He does things the most powerful cops don't. He is the hope of the damned masses abandoned by the corrupt system.
But Arjun's ways antagonize his law-abiding mother, Vyjayanthi (Vijayashanti), a retired IPS officer who wants her son to surrender to the police. How the duo's tryst with an ultra-violent gangster named Pathan (Sohel Khan) rolls out is what the film is about.
Post-Mortem:
The dated nature of this film is so complicated and complex that it is difficult to summarize in a few words how weird the movie is. Even before the saga starts to play out, you are tired of the friction between the mother and her son. Don't know how the film pulls it off but it does. Within the first 30 minutes, you realize that the mother is tired of confining her epic feud with her son to the four walls. So, she has started battling it out in the court. On his part, Arjun relentlessly loves his mom the way Prabhas' character did in Chatrapathi. But his love manifests in weird ways. He gatecrashes the shoot-outs involving his cop-mother twice. It's so hilarious that you have to watch it to believe it. As it is, the film's screenplay is fond of birthday cakes and get-togethers. At one point, cops plan the 5th anniversary celebrations of the villain's arrest. Slow claps only!
Vyjayanthi is funny, both as a mother and as an IPS officer. In one of the iconic scenes, she tells a blood-curdling goon that people's faith in the system will be strong if he goes to jail. The tragedy is that this line was intended to be a punchy one. But it ends up being unintentionally funny - much like the rest of the film. When Vijayashanthi mouths it, it feels like a TV serial mother-in-law brainwashing her daughter-in-law to behave in the kitchen.
There is something jinxed about the mother-son duo. Whenever they meet or are in a close proximity to each other, havoc follows. That's their whole life. As a child, Arjun playfully arrived on a shoot-out scene. Vyjayanthi IPS cutting her birthday cake with her right hand while shooting down the thugs with a pistol in her left hand would have been quite touching.
Vyjayanthi, as her son grows up, develops a compulsive penchant for talking about crimes and criminals all the time. On any given occasion, she is ready to sound as tone deaf as possible. At one point, this reviewer thought the climax will narrate a moving lead to a second part by revealing that Arjun is not her biological son. Maybe the end game of director Pradeep Chilurkuri was to make a film titled Arjun the Foster Son of Vyjayanthi.
The whole film is a recap of the kind of sadism Telugu cinema goons and henchmen were notorious for in the '90s era. They are bestial rapists, they do acid attacks, they terrorize slum-dwellers, and they occasionally crush the dreams of wannabe cops born to stubborn moms. They scream and shout. They scream and shout more in scenes where statues of an angry Goddess are shown for impact. They orchestrate mass killings, some of which happen because the hero is too dumb to wonder who will protect his beloved neighbors when he goes out to shop for his mother's birthday cake.
Saiee Manjrekar plays Arjun's pregnant wife. She is always glamorous while facing an existential crisis. She is so happy in blood-curdling action scenes that director Boyapati Srinu will regret that he didn't get to direct this film. You won't believe it, but she looks low-key excited about her husband's imminent arrest.
The villains are super-powerful and super-dumb at the same time. They wait for the judge to hand over capital punishment before deciding to, well, kill him in a bomb blast. A negative character lists out his entire crime history and puts himself in hot soup.
Ajaneesh Loknath's music is average. Naayaldhi is an enjoyable song and that's all there is to his work. Srikanth Vissa's screenplay is bizarre.
Closing Remarks:
Arjun S/O Vyjayanthi’s bizarre plot, unintentionally funny dialogues, and outdated villain tropes make for a bewildering experience. Only recommended for those seeking unintentional comedy and a nostalgic trip back to '90s Telugu cinema excesses.
