‘Ooru Peru Bhairavakona’ movie review: Vi Anand, Sundeep Kishan’s film could do with some magic

A bag stuffed with stolen jewelry. A person on the run. Folks displaced from a village searching for justice. In one other village, its inhabitants maintain onto grudges from the previous. A love story that has the potential to resolve a number of points. The Telugu movie Ooru Peru Bhairavakona, written and directed by Vi Anand, weaves all these threads collectively and provides components of fantasy and magical realism to this combine. One night time, in the course of nowhere, when the movie’s protagonist Basu or Basavalingam (Sundeep Kishan), accompanied by his buddy John (Viva Harsha), walks by a cover of glowing fireflies, it hints at one thing magical on the opposite aspect. It’s a facade. What lies past makes the characters take into consideration life, demise, the afterlife and the necessity to heal wounds from the previous.

Now think about a distant village that holds a number of secrets and techniques and turns into a one-way road from which there isn’t any exit. That is the setting for a bit of the narrative. There may be ample scope to make the viewers droop their disbelief and provides in to the weather of fantasy. Whereas all this may sound attention-grabbing on paper, does it translate into an interesting movie? 

Ooru Peru… begins like every other movie. Basavalingam and his buddy John are among the many a whole lot of behind-the-scenes warriors of the movie trade, working within the stunt division. When he isn’t a stunt double for a movie hero on the units, Basavalingam is cornered into doing odd jobs, together with keeping track of a kidnapped girl!

One night time, when he and John are on the run with a bag of jewelry, they cross paths with con girl Geetha (Kavya Thapar). Escaping the cops, they drive into the jungles and bump into a village named Bhairavakona. The trio attempt to make sense of the village and its mystic rituals and uncover, to their horror, that nothing is what it appears.

A few of Vi Anand’s earlier movies equivalent to Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada, Disco Raja and Okka Kshanam occur in fantastical, mysterious settings. In Ooru Peru…, he has a narrative that may make us suppose what if souls get an opportunity to heal? What if the soul learns {that a} beloved one is being taken care of or learns that another person is soldering on to finish their unfulfilled mission? 

Whereas the movie desires us to spare a thought for such potentialities, it doesn’t need us to take the narrative too significantly both. So the movie is peppered with humour, a few of which seems forcefit and dilutes the narrative. A number of enjoyable strains hit the mark and pep up the proceedings not less than momentarily, just like the exchanges between Harsha and Vennela Kishore. After a vital reveal on the halfway mark, which modifications the best way we take a look at a number of characters within the story, when one character says ‘present some respect to the useless folks’, it generates laughter. However elsewhere, a dialogue made me surprise if the ghost of a person who died many years in the past can be aware of Photoshop.

A number of fiery-looking characters inhabit Bhairavakona. Because the village’s secrets and techniques are revealed, these characters start to look much less eerie. Even the jumpscares don’t deliver within the concern issue. 

The crux of the story is the romance between Basavalingam and Bhoomi (Varsha Bollamma) that drives this narrative. Nevertheless, it doesn’t have the emotional gravitas regardless of the actors placing their earnest foot ahead. Ideally, we ought to be rooting for Basavalingam who ventures into the hazard zone, risking his limb and life. However the patchy narrative retains us at arm’s size. There may be additionally the subplot of Bhoomi, who, true to her title, fights for the reason for her place of birth. That, too, doesn’t have the supposed emotional depth.

All that discuss concerning the 4 lacking pages of the Garuda Puranam additionally doesn’t maintain curiosity for too lengthy. The melodious ‘Nijame ne chebuthunna…’ music and the glowing, magic workers within the protagonist’s arms are too little and too late to maintain us invested. An earnest Sundeep Kishan and a number of the songs composed by Shekhar Chandra are the movie’s shiny sparks. The relentless background rating, although, drowned a number of the dialogues.

Ooru Peru Bhairavakona may have been an attention-grabbing fantasy romance drama that makes us consider life, demise and the afterlife. Nevertheless, it misses its mark by an enormous mile.