There are several films that have made its way to the OTT platforms and Bhumi Pednekar’s starrer, Durgamati: The Myth, is the latest one to join the bandwagon. Remake of the Telugu blockbuster Bhagmatheiee that starred Anushka Shetty in the lead, the Hindi version directed by G Ashok (who had also helmed the original film) has turned out to be a disappointment for critics. Durgamati Movie Review: Bhumi Pednekar Can’t Pull Off an Anushka Shetty in This Dumb Horror-Thriller With a Sneaky Political Twist (LatestLY Exclusive).
Durgamati that has premiered on Amazon Prime Video today, is a horror-thriller that also features Arshad Warsi, Jisshu Sengupta and Mahie Gill in key roles. The narrative and its storytelling technique and so the performances of the star cast of Durgamati have been labelled as bland by critics. Let’s take a look at the various reviews and what all critics have said after watching this film.
NDTV - Durgamati - The Myth, streaming on Amazon Prime, peddles a mix of spooks, scares and scurries that is supposed to instill the fear of God - and, unintentionally, the dread of bad cinema - in us. Not sure it achieves the former. The latter it sure does. It deadens our senses so completely. Durgamati - The Myth is a horror story all right. It peddles a bunch of tawdry notions about vengeance and the occult, all served with an overdose of frenzied drama.
Scroll.in - Durgamati The Myth also suffers from the lack of a heroine who can suggest the comportment of a warrior queen. Bhumi Pednekar is barely convincing in either avatar. She doesn’t have the gravitas of the original film’s heroine Anushka Shetty, and isn’t skilled enough to ham convincingly when in possession mode.
India Today - Close to 2.5 hours of streaming later, there wasn't a single frame, scene-setting, camera angle that we hadn't already seen in Bhaagamathie, the Anushka Shetty-starrer Telugu film it's a remake of. Disappointment doesn't quite describe what we're feeling RN.
TOI - From the standpoint of a horror flick, ‘Durgamati’ disappoints – shadowy presence looming at the back of a room, flicking of the hair, a scary neck sticking out of nowhere are medieval and flat-out passé.
India TV - A sloppy narrative soon loses focus on what the film was originally sold as -- a horror thriller. As the story plods ahead, the plot falls all over the place. The stray 'scary' scenes are too pedestrian to startle. You know a horror film is not working when what unfolds on screen fails to hold your attention.
So that’s what critics had to say about Durgamati. If you have watched the film, share your views with us in the comment section below.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 11, 2020 02:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).