Naga Shaurya pens bizarre plot, regressive acts

Undeniably, young actor-turned-writer Naga Shaurya, should stick to acting since he fails to come up with a 'novel' plot but pens a routine serial rape and murder theme.

He completely banks on the villain's character, a doctor, who uses a banned medicine, to make young girls lose consciousness and then impregnate them which sounds little bizarre. Above all, the cruel and psychopath's atrocities, at times bit regressive, make mockery of this crime story.

No doubt, Naga Shaurya's intention to expose the underbelly of the society should be lauded, particularly crimes against women and how they are trapped, but his disturbed baddy mars the show since he even has sex with dead bodies in a mortuary.

Not just disgusting, the filmy villain is no match to real-life rapists. The real dreaded ones like in the cases of 'Nirbhaya' or 'Disha,' who look normal from outside but are beasts within, so the film has no real-life connect (as hero claimed) but just a fictional potpourri.

Coming to the story, Gana (Naga Shaurya) returns from the USA to Vizag to attend his sister Priya's(Kaur) engagement ceremony. A day after her engagement, she tries to commit suicide but Gana saves her.

He comes to know that she's pregnant but she's not aware of how did it happen. Luckily, her fiancé (Prince) is understanding and gets it aborted. Several other such cases in the city keep happening and Gana decides to solve the mystery and catch the culprit.

Actually, the film falters in various aspects as the love track between Naga Shaurya and Mehreen falls flat on its face, it slips further with family sequences of which some of them are lousy to say the least.

Even though director Ramana Teja tries to keep the momentum in the first half with brother-sister bonding, action sequences and gripping moments, he is unable to maintain the same tempo in the second part, once the baddy is exposed and ineffective and predictable climax adds to the audience woes.

'Ashwathama' also suffers as the protagonist is hardly challenged in his pursuit of finding the bad guy, unlike other thrillers like 'Rakshasudu'.

Among actors, Bengali actor Jisshu Sengupta stands tall as he breathes life into the menacing role, while Naga Shaurya shows traces of his anger and looks fit, while Mehreen looks jaded in a poorly-etched role. Newcomer Kaur and Harish Uttaman are okay.

Naga Shaurya wanted to attain an action hero image and his parents funded his dream but unfortunately the plot he has chosen is surely not engaging and engrossing enough to keep audience glued to their seats.