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Shekar Movie Review: Plot unpredictability doesn't save this uncreative remake starring Rajasekher
Shekar Movie Review: The investigative track is appreciable insofar as it is not basic.
Title: Shekar
Cast: Rajasekher and others
Director: Jeevitha Rajasekhar
Rating: 2/5
'Shekar' is a tragedy-heavy movie. The tragedy is both personal and social. Given this meaty dimension, the film should have been edgy and gut-wrenching instead of falling back on melodrama; its pacing should have been tight enough to make the audience feel for the unfolding drama and the unraveling mystery.
Director-writer Jeevitha Rajasekhar, whose filmography is riddled with one too many remakes, doesn't enhance the original material to make 'Shekar' palatable to the Telugu audience. The sensibilities of the Malayalam original 'Joseph' (2018) are too stale for a Tollywood audience who looks for both style and substance. The atmospherics feel sleepy, the dialogues sound stale, and the family emotions are narrated without a trace of novelty.
Shekar (Rajasekhar sports a salt-n-pepper look but it is Sai Kumar's dubbing that adds spice to his mostly inhibited performance) is a lonely man who has become a drunkard. Even though he is down, he is not out. He is not fallen in the typical sense. It's welcoming that he is not a stereotypical loser/cop. He has no anger issues, thankfully. His intelligence is delectable, we are told. An unconventional ex-cop, he lives with the memories of his ex-wife and daughter.
The actual story arrives when the protagonist's ex-wife meets with a terrible road accident. By now, Shekar has been through enough catastrophes in life. The original was criticized for how the double tragedies in the protagonist's life play out conveniently. In the remake, it all looks too forced to move the audience. The non-linear narration doesn't quite amplify the viewing experience.
The investigative track is appreciable insofar as it is not basic. The clues are not all over the place. However, the exposition-heavy scenes have been lazily written. The painful memories and the burden of nostalgia attempt to make the investigative procedural look emotionally satisfying. They succeed only to a small degree.
Music director Anup Rubens has been over-used. The composer is made to dish out too many songs. With someone like Rajasekhar, the songs are over-indulgent. Far from establishing the emotional foundation of the film, they look amateurish.
The reaction shots seem stretched out. The idea of casting Rajasekhar's daughter Shivani as his onscreen daughter seems pointless in retrospect. Aathmeeya Rajan's talent has been abused in such a way that, every time she is seen, the film instantly time-travels to the 1980s. 'George Reddy' fame Muskaan Kubchandhani gets a raw deal; so much so, just her costumes are enough to dumb down her performance.
The actual crime angle should have received far better treatment. The basic frames, the purely functional dialogues, and the lack of visuals that lend a touch of fearsome edge to the crime syndicate bog down the impact.
Check out the trailer of Shekar below:
