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Agent Movie Review: The most intriguing aspect of Surender Reddy's Agent is that the person who leads the good forces aka RAW in the film is nicknamed the Devil, though his real name is after a God. Meanwhile the antagonist calls himself the God, while our hero is named after two Gods. I could delve a lot into the metaphorical nomenclature of these characters, but then I would be putting more thought into it that the makers did in conceptualising this listless action thriller. Mahesh Babu Goes Gaga Over Akhil Akkineni’s Transformation for Agent, Calls It ‘Stunning’ (View Post).
Starring Akhil Akkineni in the lead, Agent has him play an ethical hacker called Ramakrishna aka Ricky. Ricky behaves as if he injects himself 10 shots of caffeine in the morning on a daily basis, so hyper-energetic he is. And the movie keeps us reminding of this over-bubbling energy by having him or someone close to him say 'Wild Saala'! He is also desperate to get into RAW and adores its chief Mahadev aka Devil (Malayalam superstar Mammootty).
The Devil, meanwhile, has his own headache in the former of a former mentee and RAW agent, who now calls himself God (Dino Morea). God heads a shady terrorist organist called Syndicate and is planning something big in the country. Realising he needs someone unpredictable to take him down, Mahadev recruits Ricky unofficially to infiltrate into the Syndicate and figure out what God is upto.
Watch the Trailer of Agent:
There is a side romantic track of Ricky with the lissome Vidya (Sakshi Vaidya) whose presence in the film is as important as the appendix in your body. So does that make the rest of the film any better? Well, Agent certainly does have ambitions, and thanks to the super-success of Pathaan, spy thrillers are in favour with the audience. It also helps that Agent shares some traits with Pathaan what with secret agencies, rogue agents gone wrong, relentless globe-trotting and OTT action sequences (also plenty of greenscreens and below-par VFX).
There is also the fact that Akhil Akkineni is having fun with the role, and his over-infectious exuberance do add some chutzpah in the first half of the film. It leads to an interesting action sequence near the interval mark that lets free the 'wild saala' side of Ricky. Unfortunately, here's also where the film peaks, and from hereon, starts a terrible downslide from which Agent never recovers.
Irony is that these are the portions where Agent should have smashed the ball out of the park. The second half completely accepts its spy thriller sensibilities, but lackadaisical writing and editing do the film in. The action sequence hardly impress, be it the utterly tense-free chase sequence in Kashmir (what to worry when the hero is protected by plot armour) or the ludicrous fight sequence in the climax.
And to add to our misery, songs drop in at random junctures, with the main culprits being "Rama Krishna" and "Wild Saala", the latter being an item song featuring Urvashi Rautela. After all, how can you make a masala potboiler in Telugu and not add an item song in it, no matter how annoying its placement can be! Agent Song Wild Saala: Akhil Akkineni and Urvashi Rautela Are Killers on the Dance Floor in This New Track by Bheems Ceciroleo.
Akhil Akkineni is a wild mixed bag in the film, there are times where I was charmed by his act and there were times when I felt he was overdoing it. But his screen presence and confident body language work well for his part. Mammootty's performance felt stiffer than his masterful roles in Malayalam cinema, and those turtlenecks don't help either, but it was still a worthwhile performance and I was glad that Mammukka did the dubbing for his character (which wasn't the case with the trailer, I assume). Dino Morea was quite good as the villain, though at times, you can't help but draw parallels with his antagonistic act in the series The Empire. I was also not convinced with the reasoning why his character broke bad - which is one of the many illogical things the movie tried to stuff in the film.
Final Thoughts
Agent struggles to live up to its lofty ambitions of being a high octane action entertainer, let down by a listless screenplay, unexceptional action scenes and below-par technical aspects. Akhil Akkineni's energetic act aside, the film doesn't do enough to borrow some of that energy into itself and be an acceptable action film at the very least. Just not wild enough to make some noise!
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 28, 2023 04:59 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
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