On a morning walk, two men discuss traffic. It could be just another day. But there’s an eeriness in the atmosphere, created by Venkat C Dilip’s cinematography and Ghibran’s effective background score that suggests something sinister. Ghibran’s score plays a crucial part all through the film, accentuating the mood of the crime drama.
As for the two morning walkers, they stumble upon the aftermath of a gory crime. A reportage of this crime and the disturbing imagery becomes one of the thousands of news clippings collected by Arun (Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas).
The walls in Arun’s room are covered almost every inch by photographs and crime reportage from across the world. He’s no investigative cop. He’s written a crime thriller and wants to direct a feature film, but his script is repeatedly rejected. Incidentally, Ram Kumar who wrote and directed Ratsasan (the Tamil original of Rakshasudu ) had stated in an interview that the story of Ratsasan was rejected for a long time. In this film (a faithful remake directed by Ramesh Varma), Arun gives up on his dream and works as a sub inspector to earn for his family.
While reading murder mysteries, I’ve often wondered if writers who research on crime motives and psychology could help cops crack a few nerve-racking cases, going by the wealth of information they’ve gathered over years. Quite often, these writers borrow incidents from real life to construct their stories. Arun finds himself in a similar situation where he senses a vicious pattern emerging when a second incident of crime is reported.
Some of the usual tropes of a cop drama are at play — Arun is an underdog whose suggestions are dismissed by Lakshmi (Suzane George) a senior, as filmi fiction. She grudgingly explores his theory when his worst fear about a missing teenage girl comes true.
Rakshasudu is set in a milieu that feels real; the fear it induces cuts close to the bone. The story reiterates the fact that more often than not, the culprit is someone known to the victims. Adolescent girls are the target of this mystery killer and the brutality of the crimes leaves even the doctor, who has probably been doing post mortems for decades, quite shaken.
The story moves at a frenetic pace and has the necessary emotional heft. One look at the people around Arun and his uncle (Rajeev Kanakala), who’s also a cop, it’s easy to guess who would be a potential target. Yet, the turn of events is chilling and the fear is palpable when the cops are helpless, without a single clue that can lead them to the monster killer.
The performances of key actors — Sai Sreenivas, Rajeev Kanakala and Anupama Parameswaran as the teacher who’s raising her sister’s daughter — are effective without overpowering the narrative. The casting is apt for the supporting characters too, including Vinod Sagar as the sexual predator masquerading as a tough teacher.
The intensity is maintained even after the backstory of the suspect is revealed. The font used to reveal the title in the opening credits hold a key. When the cops struggle before the final reveal, for us viewers, the title itself holds a clue.
Rakshasudu has a lot going for it, despite a few convenient coincidences. There’s enough drama to keep us on the edge, but a little tightening would have made the film even better. When the pin-drop silence in the hall is shattered by loud cheers as the puzzle is solved and ego-ridden personalities are shown their place, you know the narrative has kept its audience hooked.
Published - August 02, 2019 03:53 pm IST
