‘Highway’ movie review: Telugu thriller engages, but doesn’t go beyond tried and tested tropes

Author, director and cinematographer Okay V Guhan begins the story with the traces ‘There’ll all the time be a cause why you meet folks; both you could change your life or you’re the one that may change theirs’. In step with this thought, the Telugu thriller Freeway, streaming on Aha, follows a handful of characters who occur to cross paths and are pulled right into a journey of life and dying.

Freeway makes use of frequent tropes that one associates with killer-on-the-loose thrillers of Hollywood and Indian cinema and reimagines them within the context of a criminal offense drama set on the freeway connecting Visakhapatnam and Mangaluru.

Vishnu (Anand Deverakonda), a photographer from Visakhapatnam, and his good friend Samudram (Sathya) take the street path to Bengaluru for a marriage images project. Alongside the best way, they meet Tulasi (Manasa Radhakrishnan) and are entrusted with the duty of creating her attain Mangaluru. Within the meantime, a psychopath killer recognized solely as ‘D’ is on the prowl for his subsequent prey, with a activity power headed by investigation officer Asha Bharath (Saiyami Kher) on his heels.

We get a good concept of Vishnu’s loving household and in distinction, Tulasi’s state of affairs of being indifferent from one mum or dad and going looking for one other, whom she has by no means met. The banter between Vishnu and Samudram brings in just a few laughs, and appreciably the movie doesn’t dwell on it greater than is important. 

Guhan’s digicam and Simon Okay King’s background rating aptly contribute to the temper of the thriller. The modus operandi of the psychopath in choosing his targets is neatly laid out. So long as the narrative unravels how the duty power tries to shut in on D and he hoodwinks them, it retains up the momentum. 

From a mile away one is aware of who could be D’s subsequent essential goal. But, the temporary characters that make an look alongside the best way and the incidents preserve us hooked by the style by which all of it heightens the risk to the goal.

Whereas Tulasi finds assist and breathes straightforward within the firm of Vishnu and Samudram, what follows displays how unsafe issues can get for a naive younger lady who’s compelled to journey alone on an unfamiliar route.

Manasa performs her half with innocence and vulnerability whereas Anand is convincing because the delicate and accountable man. Saiyami Kher enacts her temporary half with conviction however this can be a character that might have been fleshed out higher. John Vijay goes overboard because the creepy truck driver. Making his debut in Telugu, Abhishek Banerjee is spot on because the eerie killer. Just like Paatal Lok, he manages to ship shivers down one’s backbone with out talking a lot. 

Freeway unfolds on acquainted traces and delivers thrills once in a while. Nevertheless, it falls quick within the remaining parts that appear stretched and dilute the potential for a nail-biting end. 

The movie makes for a reasonably partaking watch by staying true to its style and disposing of frills. Nevertheless, anybody who has watched crime dramas and thrillers involving a psychopath character is more likely to have a way of deja vu. A number of modern components in characterisation or storytelling wouldn’t have damage.