OTT Review : Freddy – Hindi film on Hotstar

Karthik Aaryan, who rose to stardom with back-to-back hits, has surprised fans by releasing his new film Freddy on Dinsey Plus Hotstar. Alaya F played the female lead. The movie is currently streaming on the OTT platform, and let’s see how it is.

Story:

Freddy Ginwala (Karthik Aaryan) is a prominent dentist who is basically an introvert. Freddy enrolls on a matrimony website and tries hard to find a soul mate. But his low self-esteem and shy nature make it impossible. During this, he comes across a married woman Kainaaz Irani (Alaya F), who is tortured by her husband, Rustom (Sajjad Delafrooz). Freddy and Kainaaz get attracted to each other. Freddy tells Kainaaz that they must get rid of Rustom to live happily together. What did they both do? What consequences did they face in this regard? This forms part of the rest of the story.

 

Plus Points:

We have seen Karthik Aaryan as a lover boy and in comic roles. But Freddy shows the other side of him. As an introverted and underconfident person, he gave a solid performance in the film. His body language and expressions are on point for Freddy’s role. From the beginning to the end, Karthik makes his screen presence felt. A key emotional scene where he breaks down is an example to show how he has developed as an actor. Freddy, indeed, is Karthik Aaryan’s biggest revelation to date.

Alaya F, as a woman who undergoes domestic violence, is good in her role. She looks captivating and brings depth to the film. Alaya emoted quite beautifully in important sequences and scored full marks for her performance. Her chemistry with Karthik Aaryan is superb.

The second hour of the film becomes exciting, with some interesting moments and a fast-paced narrative. In this latter half, a small cat-and-mouse game runs between the important characters, which is fun to watch. The climax portions are nicely dealt which again has a bit of humor.

 

Minus Points:

At a time when filmmakers are trying something unique, especially when they have all the freedom in the OTT space, it is surprising to see the makers sticking to a routine template film. As a result, we don’t see anything unique about the film. The director tried to overshadow the errors by having great artists, but he couldn’t succeed completely.

The film’s plot closely resembles a Hindi movie that came long ago. The movie also becomes highly predictable at times, and it can now be understood why the makers chose not to reveal the trailer.

The police investigation looks silly, as they believe in the words of Freddy’s character without even cross-checking the facts. The makers need to be very careful with the logics while making thrillers which was missed here. The first hour of the movie is prolonged with some lengthy scenes.

 

Technical Aspects:

The production design of the movie looks good, and it reflects the dark tone of the film. The background score by Clinton Cerejo is fine, and so is the cinematography by Ayananka Bose. The editing could have been still better in the first hour. The production values are nice.

Coming to director Shashanka Ghosh, he did just a passable job with Freddy. Though his work is better than his last outing, Plan A Plan B, it isn’t great enough. When you have someone like Karthik Aaryan on board, there would be some expectations from the viewers, but the director didn’t seem to care about them. He just adhered to a formulaic thriller that has its moments.

 

Verdict:

On the whole, Freddy is just a passable thriller with some good moments in the second hour. The brilliant transformation of Karthik Aaryan and his fantastic portrayal as Freddy is the biggest asset, but the problem lies with cliched storytelling and predictable nature. You can give it a try but don’t expect anything unusual from the film.

 

123telugu.com Rating: 2.75/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

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