​Rating: 1.5/5 Movie Name: Mithai Language: Telugu Release Date: 22 February 2019 Cast: Priyadarshi,Kamal Kamaraju,Ajay Ghosh,Rahul RamaKrishna,Gayatri Gupta Director: Prashant Kumar Producer: Prashant Kumar Music: Vivek Sagar Cinematography: Ravivarman Neelamegam Genre: Crime,Adventure Run Time: 136 minutes Both Priyadarshi Pullikonda and Rahul Ramakrishna have proved their talent as comedians and character artists in a bunch of movies till now. Now, the actors played the lead roles in a dark comedy movie 'Mithaai' Prashant Kumar helmed this project. Prabhat Kumar under Red Ants Cinema banner bankrolled this project. Kamal Kamaraju, Ravi Varma, Arsha, Swetaa Varma and Aditi Myakal played crucial roles in this movie which finally hit the screens today. The movie unit is super confident about this movie. Let's check out the review of the film. Story: An IT employee Venkata Sai (Rahul Ramakrishna) loses his job right at the time when he plans to get married. On top of that, his house gets robbed, pushing him into further trouble. He also realizes that his fiance's necklace got stolen and seeks the help of friend Jaani(Priyadarshi) to find it. Both of them starts hunting for the robber and this whole journey leads them to a crazy adventure. Will they finally find the thief? What are the hurdles they cross in this whole journey? Whom all will they meet in this ride? To know the answers to such questions, we have to watch the film. Performances: Rahul Ramakrishna's energetic performance livens up the entire movie. He has delivered a memorable performance in the movie and will grab the attention with his performance. Priyadarshi Pullikonda is undoubtedly the show stealer for this movie. He has delivered his career-best performance in this movie. Though he got a different kind of role in this movie, he has portrayed it really well. Kamal Kamaraju's performance also added more strength to this movie. He did a convincing job portraying his role. Arsha looked pretty and promising in the movie. She not only looked beautiful but also performed really well. Swetaa Varma is perfect for the role and she breathes life into the character. Aditi Myakal delivered a decent performance. Ravi Varma and Bhushan Kalyan did their best. The rest of the cast also made their presence felt. Technical Aspects: Director Prashant Kumar's storytelling skills are really good. Keeping the week story aside, his fast-paced narration will definitely engage the audience. He has executed the script really well. Though there are some few shortcomings, his narration will cover it up. Production values by Prabhat Kumar under Red Ant Cinema banner are decent. As it is a low budget movie, we can say that the producers have invested enough. Music by Vivek Sagar can be considered as the biggest asset for this movie. Apart from songs, the background score is also wonderful. Cinematography by Ravivarman and Neelamegam is excellent. The visuals came out good. Editing by Garry BH is clean and neat. Verdict: Dark comedies are rarely made in Telugu cinema. Thus, when the makers promoted Mithai as a dark comedy, there was much anticipation around it. But the scenario changes entirely when the audience steps into the theatres. The film which takes off on an interesting note starts dropping slowly from there on. Better don't get surprised if viewers leave the theatre halfway through the film. Even talented actors like Rahul Ramakrishna and Priya Darshi couldn't save this movie. On the whole, director Prashant Kumar serves an age-old rotten Mithai rather than a freshly made one. Disclaimer : This Review is An Opinion of One Person. Please Do Not Judge The Movie Based On This Review. Watch Movie in Theatre<doc-sep>â€˜Mithaiâ€™ review: Rahul Ramakrishna and Priyadarshiâ€™s absurd comedy does not work The film parades as a dark comedy, but it is neither dark nor comedic. It is the tale of two alcoholic-losers, who spend all day drinking. Flix Tollywood There are movies where you want to sit straight, 15 minutes after the start, and ask the director, â€˜What were you smokinâ€™ bro?â€™ These are movies that, like they say, should have never seen the light of day. These are movies where you wonder, â€˜Fine, the director was out of his mind, what about the actors? What were they up to!â€™ Mithai is one such movie. Mithai parades as a dark comedy, but it is neither dark nor comedic. It is the tale of two alcoholic-losers, who spend all day drinking. One of them gets drunk and crashes at his home with the door ajar, only to find himself in vomit the next day and half the things in his house stolen, including a locket he was due to gift the girlfriend he was going to wed in three days. The rest of the movie is about these two friends searching for his things, because some pretentious friend of theirs in a bright red blazer (like you can rent something more soothing, bro) challenges his masculinity, asking him to catch the thief before he earns the right to get married. Are you tripping yet? Worst bachelor party in a movie ever! Mithai, the movie, is so ridiculously made, it makes you wonder whose idea of comedy it is. Sample this: the two guys find the stolen locket being worn by a random woman they see in a pub. They trace her back to her house â€“ accidentally again, after losing sight of her midway. She just hands over the locket to them and tells them her boyfriend gave it to her. They just randomly end up at the boyfriendâ€™s house who apparently hasnâ€™t gotten out of his home for two months, has a goat for a pet and is at least in his forties. Despite that, he takes these two guys, who break into his house and drink all his scotch, around the city to help them find their stuff â€“ worst good Samaritan ever portrayed in a movie. Oh, he even breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience. It is like some â€˜dudeâ€™ randomly decided to make an intellectual movie but forgot that the average IQ of people in an intellectual movie isnâ€™t hovering around 0. They meet a detective who talks about world issues on the phone â€“ lo and behold, Trump and Kim Jong-un problem explained using two butt-naked kids. Worst visual analogy ever. Worst detective ever! Amidst these weird set of events is plenty of cheap graphics and camera experiments â€“ remember the kind final year engineers do in their project to hide how bad it is. Worst visual effects ever. And then there is a â€˜musicianâ€™ whose idea of dressing smart is a blazer with buttons open over his pot belly and a tie around his neck. Worst costume-design ever! Some of us movie-lovers were interested in the movie because we thought, hey, it features two of the most talented sidekicks in the Telugu industry right now â€“ Rahul Ramakrishna and Priyadarshi. How bad can it be! Mithai bad, really. Rahul has just one expression throughout the movie â€“ the what-the-hell-am-I-doing-in-this-ridiculous-movie emoji. Priyadarshi, who wakes up on two different days in briefs â€“ thank you director for the visuals â€“ gives the impression of someone who got punch drunk because no sober actor would agree to be part of the ridiculous, brain-numbing experiment that this movie is. You almost wish there was someone on the sets who could see the absurdity and inform the makers that this story was going nowhere. But, hey, it was produced, directed and written by the same person. Thanks, but no thanks for probably what will be by a country mile the most nightmarish Telugu movie of 2019. I wonder how the story-writer sold it to the actors. â€˜Hey man, I donâ€™t have a story but I can make some graphics and letâ€™s all act funny and drunk and shoot that.â€™ Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the filmâ€™s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.<doc-sep>An awkwardly nuanced attempt at a dark comedy What is Mithai? What connection does it have to the story? The primary character Venkat Sai (Rahul Ramakrishna), somewhere in the beginning of the story with a distinct sartorial choice, announces quite firmly not to get into the comfort and trap of a corporate set up, it’s like a sweet bait (mithai) and makes you feel this is the only life. To be more clear, it tells like-minded people not to work like a donkey in a corporate job for the money it offers and as a consequence forget the real life... of biryani, beer and friends. Venkat Sai is set to marry his girlfriend in three days when he is kicked out of his job. He is robbed of his laptop, television, the necklace he wanted to gift his future wife; he is now crestfallen and seeks solace of his partner in crime, his alter ego Jani (Priyadarshi). Mithai Cast: Rahul Ramakrishna Priyadarshi Director: Prashant Kumar Music: Vivek Sagar Moving back to the prelude, the director tells us the Nizams did leave Hyderabad but they left a few behind and the camera pans on these two friends. Jani is a lazy man and is often criticised by his wife who is only audible reeling of choicest epithets, yet he comforts Sai when he is faced with burglary and shaken in confidence. Jani and Sai embark on a journey to find the lost necklace and bump into umpteen useless characters who have no strong character sketch. Through these people the director throws light and pays tribute to samosas, mutton, chicken and even Sushi which is threatening to invade our local cuisine. In a rib-tickling episode, we are shown how a few people boast of their knowledge of Sushi and how they treat waiters when they go to a restaurant. The first half is engaging, the Telangana dialect is indisputably delightful with Rahul Ramakrishna and Priyadarshi driving the story ahead. But after a point, when the necklace is retrieved, there is nothing to talk about. We don’t understand why Rahul wants to catch the thief and only then get married when he has already found the necklace. The story is deliberately extended, and the characters are downright painful. Sometimes a story without logic is termed as a timepass but here one can easily walk away in the break and not return. An elderly man advocates carpe diem in the climax and tells people to enjoy beer and life. We see a woman smoking in a petrol bunk and some more irresponsible scenes that got away from the notice of the censor board. Watching Mithai is like eating a sugarfree sweet. It satiates your sugar craving but after that it serves no purpose. The comedian duo ensure you buy a ticket and get you seated but they can’t stop you from leaving. The background score, the music and cinematography are however good. But we wish the second half had something strong to rave about.<doc-sep>
Story: Sai (Rahul Ramakrishna) is a down on his luck man who is constantly treated like a doormat by his boss, friends and fiancé. The only person who ever stands up for him is his best friend Jani (Priyadarshi) whose only aim in life is to have a good time, much to the chagrin of his wife. What happens when Sai is looted one fateful night and his whole world is turned upside down? Review: Debutant Prashant Kumar’s Mithai features a stellar cast featuring names like Bhushan, Kamal Kamaraju, Swetha Varma and Aditi Myakal on it. Most of these actors do their best to breathe life into characters, even those that are underwritten. But that is unfortunately not enough to make the film always work. Mithai starts off with superb potential but goes downhill as the film progresses, with only Rahul Ramakrishna, Priyadarshi and Bhushan saving the day. Sai (Rahul Ramakrishna) is a corporate employee who loses his job, gets his house burgled and almost loses his fiancé, all in the span of a day. To make matters worse, everyone in his life – be it his boss, fiancé or even a long-lost friend Krishna (Ravi Varma) seem to treat him with nothing but disdain. His carefree friend Jani (Priyadarshi), who floats in the same boat as him, has no aim in life, much to the chagrin of his wife. Sai is soon thrown a challenge – to not get married unless he finds the burglar and he accepts, in hope that people finally begin taking him seriously. Both the friends embark on a madcap journey to find the thief. The premise, while simple, sounds promising on paper and Prashant too makes it work for him in bits and pieces. Sure, the jokes don’t always land nor does the twist at the end really surprise anyone, but the downfall of the film truly lies in the parts where it seems to drag on and on, with scenes that do nothing to move the story forward. A musician Siddharth (Kamal Kamaraju) and his babe (Arsha) are introduced into the narrative, only for their scenes involving nothing but eating various delicacies and his girlfriend providing him and the audience gyaan on the origin of it, and a long, ridiculous scene involving detective Deepti (Swetha Varma) talking to her clients which isn’t even funny. There’s a lot more weaved into this tale, involving dream sequences, Sai’s inherited car, a donkey, a random man dressed in neon green always hovering around Sai and Jani and of course, the encouragement offered to the duo by the laidback Dude (Bhushan) who loves his pet goat Sundari. Unfortunately for Prashant, he takes on too much for his debut film and only delivers sporadically. Mithai does have scenes that will stay with you, long after the film is done, especially when it comes to the philosophy that lies underneath all the mess. Rahul Ramakrishna, Priyadarshi and Bhushan deliver stellar performances, with the chemistry between the former two being the highlight of the film. Between the three, they deliver even the drabbest dialogues with élan, making the film not a complete loss. Aditi Myakal does her best in the limited screen time she has. The ever-dependable Kamal Kamaraju fails to make his madcap character work, nor does the debutant Arsha, with both coming off as bad caricatures in the tale. The music by Vivek Sagar is stellar, setting the mood for the film. The costume and art direction of the film dares to charter into a territory that TFI rarely veers into. Go watch Mithai this weekend only if a tale of misadventure and some mindless fun is what you seek. Also watch this one especially for the leads, for they save the film whenever it needs it. Give this one a miss if quirky films that sometimes make no sense are not your cup of tea.