A wannabe Bond style thriller

‘Goodachari’ is an oft-seen blend of heart-tugging emotions and non-stop action sequences on the face of it. In sync with the spy drama it turns out to be, it looks different from inside as it proceeds. Close to the end of the first half, the action packs in a lot of stuff with an emotional undertone with the unrequited love of the hero who is on a ‘Save the Nation’ mission. There are double-crossing secret agents and compromised lovers who are in and out of the local James Bond’s life, who aches for the affection of his father, a cop, who is killed in action.

At the climax, putting India’s interests above everything else, the victorious protagonist is shown getting ready for his next mission by the debutante director Sashi Kiran Tikka (with a sequel in mind, one presumes) reporting for duty to his tough boss, played well by Supriya Yarlagadda. With the story and screenplay by Adivi Sesh, who seems to have dusted out the non-stop cat-n-mouse kind of films with an undercover spy leading the pack, the Goodachari franchise, replete with the Agent Gopi tag, bearing code number 116, gets a grand revival from the black-n-white days.

With not much scope for sentiment or melodrama to compete alongside flying bullets and hi-tech warfare, the intense romance which blooms between the lead pair is limited to a few intimate scenes and daring lip locks. Adivi Sesh, at times expressionless, still retains a watchable body language of a mercenary while Sobhita smoulders onscreen with her sizzling screen presence.

The ubiquitous jehadi is the main evil element in this flick too, as the narrative takes the hero and his team to deeper recesses of the Himalayas and some scenes in a Bangladesh background. For once, Pakistan is not blamed but there is enough reference to the prominent terror organisations which are shown filling young children with hate against the neighbour India.

For most part, at least till the climax, which seems flat and uninspiring, the movie scores on its attention to detail and maintaining its fast-paced rhythm, characterising movies made in this genre. It is to be seen whether the melodrama which mars the speed of the proceedings in the last 15 minutes affects the film’s fortunes or it enables it reach across the B and C centres, where such types of movies do not have a great commercial appeal.