Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya

Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language comedy-thriller film written and directed by Swaroop RSJ and produced by Rahul Yadav Nakka. The film stars Naveen Polishetty as the titular character along with Shruti Sharma and Suhas. It follows a Nellore-based detective whose life runs into danger when he starts investigating the case of a dead body abandoned near a railway track..
Released theatrically on 21 June 2019, the film received highly positive reviews from the critics, and was successful at the box office. The film won three awards at Zee Cine Awards Telugu.
Plot.
Agent Sai Sreenivas Athreya wakes up in the middle of the night to a personal tragedy, the death of his mother. He goes home to Nellore from his college in Bhopal, only to see his mother has already been cremated by his uncle.
3 years later, he now becomes a detective in Nellore, setting up FBI (Fathima Bureau of Investigation). His assistant Sneha helps him in cases. Athreya is mostly involved in solving petty cases. One day his writer friend Sirish informs him of an unidentified body in Venkatachalam. When he goes there, the police arrest him on suspicion of murder. In jail that night, Athreya meets a man who acknowledges himself as Maruthi Rao and tells him the story of his daughter Divya, who went missing after going to Ongole. He gives him 3 phone numbers of three people who were the last who had contacted Divya before she was supposedly murdered. Ajay, Harsha, and Vasudha. Athreya and Sneha, upon investigation based on the phone numbers, confirm that Ajay and Harsha were in Ongole the day Divya was murdered, while Vasudha cannot be traced. They follow them both all day, who go to a car rental agency, mortuary, and railroad. At the end of the day, Athreya recognizes Divya somewhere along a highway, who doesn't speak Telugu, ignoring him. Upon checking at the police station at Nellore, they find that no Maruti Rao was transferred from the rural station in the last three days. Upon checking at the rural station, they find that the person who had called himself Maruti Rao is actually Gopalam. Further inquiry with the station in Ongole reveals that on the day that Divya was claimed to be dead, the body found was male. Later, at a Dhaba, Athreya discovers Ajay was brutally murdered and he is promptly arrested as the prime suspect.
Athreya gets out on bail due to CCTV Footage evidence that he was in Venkatachalam asking for Maruthi Rao, but he only has five more days to prove his innocence due to the overwhelming evidence against him. While Agent and Sneha investigate for clues at Harsha's house, someone tries to kill Athreya. He explains his theory to the police of the Nellore rural station, and it's discovered that Harsha wanted the details of Athreya after he saw him being arrested in Venkatachalam. Meanwhile, a father registers a complaint about his missing daughter, and the missing daughter is Vasudha who turns out to be dead. Athreya then catches Bobby who has been following Agent around, however, Bobby is a detective like him fed with false information that Athreya is the real murderer. Athreya figures out that there is a huge conspiracy, and sees that various bodies have been dumped next to the railway track between Kakinada and Tada railway stations. He deduces that the bodies are being loaded using a goods train. Using this information, he sees that the bodies are loaded into the goods train at Arambakkam in Tamil Nadu. With the help of a police officer, Bobby, and Sneha, he goes to Arambakkam after faking his death to mislead the people following him. In Arambakkam he catches Gopalam, who reveals the whole plot: someone has been taking dead bodies from Hindu families on the pretext that they are taking the bodies to Kashi, a holy place to cremate the dead, for money, and then dump them next to railroads. He also finds out that his mom's body has been dumped like this too since his uncle sent his mom's body for Kashi. After an emotional breakdown, Athreya finds out that the fingerprints of the dead man in Venkatachalam actually have the same fingerprints of a murderer in Gujarat, and deduces that they are stealing the fingerprints of dead bodies as well to use them in crimes.
Athreya and Bobby find that the people behind this wanted to set them up so that they wouldn't find the Bethaballi Amman's (a religious NGO) talismans on the dead bodies that were supposed to be removed before the bodies are disposed of. Meanwhile, Sneha and the police officer find that Ajay, Harsha, and Vasudha collaborated on a college project about religious crimes in India and collect the material along with their photos. Looking at the photos, Athreya realizes that the dead body of Vasudha had a tattoo from childhood, while Vasudha in a picture does not. It is later revealed that Vasudha and her dad are running the whole operation. Ajay, Harsha, and Athreya came across the body with the talisman and hence Vasudha wanted to kill Ajay and Harsha and set up Agent so that nobody could trace the dead body to her.
After going to Bethabali Amman NGO's office to find it empty, Athreya deduces that Vasudha went to Rajasthan and catches her and her father there and hands them over to the police. Athreya bids his goodbye to Bobby, while he and Sneha still continue to take up small cases.
Production.
The lead actor Naveen Polishetty explained that when he was looking for some good scripts, the director Swaroop contacted him on Facebook and told him the film's title and about the protagonist. When he narrated the whole story, Polishetty agreed to do the film if they got to work together on the final version. Swaroop agreed and they met at Hyderabad, where Polishetty's 4-years of experience as a writer helped him and they together worked on the script for eight months.
The soundtrack was composed by Mark K Robin and the cinematography was handled by Sunny Kurapati. The film was produced by the "Malli Raava" fame Rahul Yadav Nakka.
Soundtrack.
The film's only song is "Sherlock Holmes", composed by Mark K Robin. It has two versions: one sung by Anurag Kulkarni, and another by Harika Narayan.
Release.
The film was released theatrically on 21 June 2019. The film was also dubbed and released in Hindi on YouTube as "Agent Sai" on 23 January 2021 by Goldmines Telefilms.
Critical reception.
"Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya" received widespread critical acclaim.
"Film Companion" gave it a positive review and called it the best comedy thriller of the decade. "Times of India" gave it 4 stars out of 5, praising Polishetty's performance and the execution. "The Hans India" gave the film 4 stars out of 5, praising the performances, music and screenplay while criticising the slow-paced narration in the first half. "Deccan Chronicle" similarly gave it 4 stars out of 5 and praised the performances, background score and the cinematography. "The News Minute" gave it 4 stars out of 5, and calling it a "textbook crime drama", praised the plot and cinematography but criticised some dubbing mismatches, Sharma's "undermined" character in the second half and editing towards the end.
The film also received appreciation from several Telugu film celebrities like director K. Raghavendra Rao and actors Allu Arjun and Varun Tej.
Box office.
"Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya" opened alongside several films at the box office, and had highest collections among all other releases on its opening day. Following the positive word of mouth and due to low screening costs, the film became a commercial success in both India and USA.
Home media.
The film was digitally released on the Over-the-top media service Amazon Prime Video. It's Hindi dubbed version's satellite rights were sold to Sony Pictures.
Future.
Following the film's success, the makers announced the film's extension into a franchise. The film is being remade in Malayalam starring Dhyan Sreenivasan.