Telugu Reviews, Volume 9: ‘Spy’, ‘Hi Nanna’ (2023), & ‘Guntur Kaaram’ (2024)

Directed by: Garry BH [1], Shouryuv [2], Trivikram Srinivas [3] || Produced by: K. Rajashekhar Reddy [1], Mohan Cherukuri, Vijender Reddy Teegala, Murthy K. S. [2],  S. Radha Krishna [3]

Screenplay by: Anirudh Krishnamurthy [1], Shouryuv, Bhanu Dheeraj Rayudu, Vasanth Sameer Pinnamaraju [2], Trivikram Srinivas [3] || Starring: Nikhil Siddharth, Iswarya Menon, Abhinav Gomatam, Jisshu Sengupta [1], Nani Babu, Mrunal Thakur [2], Mahesh Babu, Sree Leela, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Ramya Krishna, Jayaram Subramaniam, Prakash Raj, Jagapathi Babu, Rao Ramesh [3]

Music by: Vishal Chandrasekhar, Sricharan Pakala [1], Hesham Abdul Wahab [2], Thaman S [3] || Cinematography: Vamsi Patchipulusu, Mark David, Julian Amaru Estrada, Keiko Nakahara, Manojh Reddy [1], Sanu Varghese [2], Manoj Paramahamsa, P. S. Vinod [3] || Edited by: Garry BH [1], Praveen Anthony [2], Naveen Nooli [3] || Country: India || Language: Telugu

Running Time: 135 minutes [1], 155 minutes [2], 159 minutes [3] || 1 = Spy, 2 = Hi Nanna, 3 = Guntur Kaaram

My most recent travels to India this past holiday season to visit my in-laws in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka reemphasized to me how useful exposure to foreign films are to culturally preparing oneself for visits to the respective countries or regions where those films were made. Short of marrying someone from another culture or learning another language — rare and labor-intensive events, respectfully — the easiest way to preview a culture you could be traveling to is to peak into their visual storytelling industry and see what their audiences like, laugh at, find fascinating, and what they fear.

Top: Lead Nikhil Siddharth confronts a runaway armed suspect in one of Spy’s capable action set-pieces. The story of Spy, however, is something Siddharth’s protagonist has a harder time handling. Bottom: Hi, Nanna! Female lead Mrunal Thakur (left) greets male lead Nani Babu (right) in director Shouryuv’s debut feature.

Spy, one of the last Indian action movies I watched prior to returning to the Indian subcontinent, is an interesting grab-bag of assorted espionage thriller tropes, shoot-’em-up action, and heavyhanded nationalist preaching that I might enjoy more if the whole affair didn’t feel so cheap in its special FX, haphazard in its feature-length editing, or lazy in its characterizations. The 135-minute South Asian riff on a Tom Clancy-esque military procedural, incredibly brief by the standards of Indian filmmaking, is respectable for its brevity and disinterest in the boring, bland slow-motion choreography of most mainstream South Indian blockbusters, but stumbles when it comes to writing characters with personality and conjuring even halfway likable performances from its starring cast (Nikhil Siddharth, Iswarya Menon, and Abhinav Gomatam are all cardboard cutouts as Research & Analysis Wing or National Investigation Agency officers). Worst of all is how shoehorned a notable cameo performance by Telugu-Tamil star Rana Daggubati feels, who shows up to deliver one of the cheesiest, most awkward political speeches I’ve watched in a motion picture in years to somehow justify the movie’s third act revisionist history twist.

The most recent of these three subjects I’ve watched was Guntur Kaaram (Spice of Guntur), which reunites Telugu action star Mahesh Babu with longtime Telugu filmmaking veteran, writer-director Trivikram Srinivas. Like Spy, Guntur Kaaram eschews most of the Matrix (1999)-type slow-motion fight sequences that drag down the pacing of the average big-budget South Indian tentpole feature in favor of faster paced choreography and scrappier fisticuffs, but unlike the former, focuses its energy on the arcs of its main characters by making their interpersonal melodrama the heart of the narrative. Effective melodrama is an endemic strength to South Asian moviemaking, and while Srinivas doesn’t meld that with song and dance here quite as well as Sanjay Bhanasali or S. S. Rajamouli, he sketches a decent yarn of a grown manchild (Babu) torn over his mother’s (Ramya Krishna) abandonment of their family at a young age. How Srinivas peals back layers of this familial betrayal with care without turning any of his major characters into cartoon stereotypes is admirable, as is his staging of various set-pieces where Babu throws relatable yet embarrassing temper tantrums.

If only Guntur Kaaram had put more effort into its musical numbers (either commit to them or excise them), beefed up Babu’s romance with supporting actress Sree Leela, or edited its runtime down to the length of, say, Spy, Srinivas’ latest collaboration with Babu could’ve earned a full fledged endorsement from yours truly. Its visual humor, memorable narrative surprises, and better than average lead performance from Babu strike well above blockbuster mediocrity save for those major shortcomings.

Last and by far the best of this recent batch of Telugu features is Hi Nanna (Hi Dad), the directorial debut of one Shouryuv (full name of Koduri Yuvaraj Shourya Simha) and newest star vehicle for Nani Babu. Nanna is about as longwinded as your average contemporary South Indian crowdpleaser (155 minutes), but you don’t feel much of that length thanks to its smart, well paced flashback structure organized around a classical embedded narrative framework and clever story twists. It’s an altogether heartfelt, sweet narrative whose themes of fate, family, and parenthood feel genuine rather than artificial a la the contrived, fake sentimentality of Karan Johar’s films or a Happy Madison comedy. Nani gives one of his better performances in recent years while enjoying good chemistry with costar and love-interest Mrunal Thakur, though unfortunately the same cannot be said for the supporting performance of child-actor Kiara Khanna around whom much of the story revolves.

Mahesh Babu dances his stiff hips with female costar Sree Leela in Guntur Kaaram. If writer-director Trivikram Srinivas had developed the latter’s character better, Kaaram’s romantic subplot could’ve supported the film’s overall narrative.

I remarked to my wife how I wish we’d watched Hi Nanna in theatres while we stayed in Khammam, Telangana instead of the first part of Salaar (2023; we later watched Nanna at home on Netflix after our trip), whose only noteworthy features were how sweaty Prabhas Raju looked next to all the neat dust particles swirling around his deltoids when he punched a guy. All three of these spotlighted movies, from the good (Nanna) to the mediocre (Guntur Kaaram) to the bad (Spy), have way more interesting things to say about their parent ethnoreligious culture than an empty, overextended action film with forgettable action like Salaar, even if they fall flat on their face (Spy, again). While I would never look down upon those who don’t have time to study, marry, or work outside their culture, I’d say absorbing a healthy dosage of foreign cinema like these is an artsier and far simpler way to research other cultures to which you might travel in the future.

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SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Spy is the sort of concise, standalone military action thriller Hollywood used to make more often (see Bourne [2002–2016], Kathryn Bigelow’s military flicks, The Hunt for Red October [1990], etc.) but rarely does nowadays outside of streaming, and Spy might’ve scratched that itch if it wasn’t such a disorganized, preachy mess like many longer, dumber, bigger-budgeted South Indian blockbusters. This year’s Guntar Kaaram fares much better from the standpoint of its characterizations and Trivikram Srinivas’ stylish direction, but the movie remains too damned long while ending on its worst narrative twist. Last winter’s Hi Nanna, on the other hand, is a lowkey romance that tugs at your heartstrings thanks to how it respects both its main characters and the audience’s intelligence, all done through smart, restrained direction and a sweet wraparound ending.

—> Spy is NOT RECOMMENDED, while I’m ON THE FENCE with respect to Guntur Kaaram and RECOMMEND Hi Nanna.

? Why does Spy have five directors of photography?