84. Eagle; movie review

 

EAGLE

Cert 15

156 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong bloody violence, injury detail

Groan...  Karthik Gattamneni's Eagle is a combination of every crass cliche from bad Indian action movies.

It has a huge body count, a hero who kills people as quickly as he looks at them and an unfunny comedy tangent centring on a cowardly but greedy politician.

To top it all, there is a romance between a beautiful lass in her 20s and a gun-toting stalker in his 50s.

The initial premise isn't that bad... a journalist (Anupama Parameswaran) opens up a tantalising story after she writes a news report about the international demand for cotton from an Indian mill.

Her brief article throws the authorities in a tailspin, so she tries to find out why and is led via a circuitous route to the mysterious mill owner, Sahadev (Ravi Teja).

It turns out that the chap the cotton workers know as their benevolent boss is Eagle, an assassin feared worldwide.

He uses his disguise, built up over a decade, to break the trade of illegal arms in his country.

However, it takes some pretty crazy logic to arrive at him being a hero, given his own record of indiscriminate killing.

Meanwhile, no matter how many highly trained combatants track him down, he bumps them off and is seemingly indestructible.

It is ludicrous and laughable and sets a shallow bar regarding acting quality. 

Only Parameswaran has a role that requires a bit of depth - every other character is akin to cardboard cutouts of those seen in many other films.

That includes Teja - he just growls and shouts nonsense lines throughout.

Sure, the special effects are pretty fancy, and there are unique ways to gun down people, but this is a mess of a movie overall.

Reasons to watch: Action thriller

Reasons to avoid: So many cliches

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 3/10

Did you know? Director YVS Chowdary gifted Ravi Teja a bracelet when both were roommates and Teja wore it in many of his films but stopped when a co-star was hurt badly by the metal during a fight scene.

The final word. Karthik Ghattamaneni: "Eagle is an attempt to bring films like Rambo and Terminator to the Telugu audience." 123 Telugu

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