REVIEW: VAKEEL SAAB (Telugu)

Producers- Boney Kapoor and Dil Raju

Director-Venu Sriram

Star Cast- Pwan Kalyan, Shruti Hassan, Nivetha Thomas, Anjali, Ananya Nagalla

Genre- Social

Platform-Amazon Prime Video

Rating-***

VERBOSE BUT ENGROSSING

Jyothi Venkatesh

Vakeel Saab is nothing but an unabashed rip off of the Hindi hit Pink, a film that managed to break barriers and generate conversations, especially around consent.

Vakeel Saab has been tweaked with a generous dose of masala to not just suit Pawan Kalyan’s star image but also his budding political career.

To put it in a nutshell, Vakeel Saab revolves around three girls who find themselves accused of an attempt to murder after escaping molestation at the hands of a few white collared men at a resort.

Their only hope is an alcoholic lawyer, played by (Konidela Satyadev) Pawan Kalyan who agrees to take up the case.

Pallavi (Nivetha Thomas), Zareen (Anjali) and Divya (Ananya Nagalla) are roommates who work hard to make a living for their parents who belong to middle class families.

However, their happy, simple and carefree life soon turns upside down due to an unfortunate encounter one night.

Credit ought to go to director Venu Sriram for sticking to the plot of Pink for the most part but intelligently tweaking the screenplay given how differently Pawan Kalyan’s character has been fleshed out, opposite to that of Amitabh Bachchan in Pink, in order to cater to Pawan’s mass appeal.

Incidentally producer Boney Kapoor had earlier made the Tamil version of Pink too with the title Nerkonda Paarvai with Thala Ajit

Despite all that table thumping in the climax of the film which is far too boisterous for our comfort, Pawan Kalyan as Satyadev does get his moment in court to make it clear that when a girl says no , she means no” and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters in the long run. Shruti Hassan hardly gets any footage to display her talent and has been wasted

As far as performances go, the film is out and out a vehicle for Pawan Kalyan to show his mettle as an actor though he fails to show his acting talent and prefers to play to the gallery most of the time.

Prakash Raj also renders a very spirited performance as the prosecution lawyer Nandaji who aligns himself opposite Pawan Kalyan’s character fights against the girls.

Nivetha shines as Pallavi rendering every pore of her skin to her role with effortless ease while Anjali does not leave behind any stone unturned as far as her portrayal as Zareen is concerned.

On the whole, all that I can say honestly is that though the film is very verbose, nevertheless it is very engaging too.