Spyder (2017) - review

[Christopher Moriarty]

AR Murugadoss directorial had been in making since 2 years. Bilingual thriller also marks telugu superstar Mahesh Babu’s entry into KTown.
Shiva is an employee in intelligence bureau. As a part of his job,he taps public phone calls so as to thwart threats for the society. One day he come across a menacing sociopath who loves the wailing cries of public.
The character design of both Shiva and Sudalai are loosely based on Christopher Nolans’ Dark Knight. Well shiva is a normal human being who does extraordinary things with the help of technology, sudalai is a sociopath who gets a turn on by inflicting pain on others, much like joker.
Mahesh Babu is not a terrific actor. However his calm and composed ‘subtle acting’ perfectly suits the character. After Baahubali, there is a tendency for every film to get compared to Baahubali series and every telugu actor is keen to expand their market horizons. Interestingly Mahesh who forays into tamil through this film, is named as Shiva like prabhas in baahubali. Well prabhas who became an overnight sensation post baahubali, Mahesh is wasted in this average affair.
But SJ Suriya is the man of the moment. Be his hairstyle, his mannerisms or his uber cool bgm it gaves us chills. Among the supporting cast, jayaprakash and hareesh peradi gets noticed. While Rakul preet is wasted. Editing by sreekar Prasad is decent. Harris Jayaraj does an excellent job.
Though spyder was rumoured to be spy thriller and something related to biowar in the initial stages of project development. An image of an electronic spider climbing over the shoulders of Mahesh babu and a finger enveloped in a plastic bag reinstated these rumours. However to my surprise, I couldnot find these two scenes and was instead watching serial killer stuff. But the weakness of spyder is that it doesnot fit the bracket of a serial killer movie or a mass action entertainer. AR Murugadoss had penned a superb first half.In fact I found first half of spyder on par with Ghajini and Thuppakki, ARMs best work to date. Pre interval sequences and terrific interval block( trust me it is the best interval sequence that I ever watchd in south indian cinema) promises a racy second half. Second half starts well, however fells flat in later sequences and ends up with a okayish climax.
Peter hein who handled action sequences does a good job. However much talked about roller coaster fight is marred with a mediocre vfx. I found vfx works of 7aum arivu and much lower budget pulimurugan better. It’s high time for so-called biggies to realise that when you are making a movie with 120crs, make sure it shows on screen and supplemented by a strong screenplay, rather spenting a lionshare as actors’ fee. Santosh Shivan also disappointed big time
With all that been said, SPYder is definitely not a bad cinema. But it doesnot lives upto expectations and end up as an average affair despite an excellent first half.

VERDICT: 2.5/5
AVERAGE
"JOKER MEETS MICHAEL MYERS IN TTOWN"

[ClubAns]

Thanks for the Review.........