OG, produced on a prestigious scale by RRR makers DVV Entertainment, has debuted at the cinemas. In this section, we are going to talk about the movie in detail.
Plot:
Satyanarayana aka Satya Dada (Prakash Raj) is a don-like figure who runs a well-guarded port in Bombay. A high-profile container that can lead to cataclysmic consequences for the city lands in his port. This is when Ojas Gambheera (Pawan Kalyan) must return to the city to take on the evil forces that want to lay their hands on the container come what may. Among them is a dreaded international gangster named Omi Bhau (Emraan Hashmi), whom only Gambheera can defeat.
Performances:
Pawan Kalyan's commanding screen presence through powerful dialogue delivery, intense body language, and nuanced expressions reflect his character’s decade-long absence from Bombay and burning resolve. He confronts the ghosts of groupism and shows an unrelenting ferocity in action sequences. He is a treat to wach in his career's most violent action role.
Emraan Hashmi exudes menace but falls short of creating a formidable foil to Gambheera. His performance combines a single-minded focus and menace, but there is no cunning and charming arrogance to his character. This makes the antagonist an underwhelming force in the Sujeeth Cinematic Universe.
The characters representing fragmented loyalties and collapsing, shaky alliances are played by actors who portray vulnerability reasonably well. The ensemble chemistry depicts the underworld dynamics, although the lack of chaos in this immoral world strips the performances of their zing.
More than Priyanka Mohan, it is the presence of Arun Das, Sriya Reddy and Harish Uttaman that is better. More than Prakash Raj's acting, it is that of Sudev Nair that stands out. Tej Sapru as Mirajkar is decent.
Technical aspects:
The visual tone is gritty yet stylized, capturing the underworld's hideouts. That said, there is a 'been there, done that' feel to the visuals. Ravi K. Chandran handles the cinematography, with Manoj Paramahamsa takes care of the additional cinematography.
Action sequences are not that visceral. They lack the required inventiveness, with Sujeeth relying on the screenplay style to do the heavy lifting. Fights feel brutal at times, but the massacres don't feel earned. The action-related highs in the second hour are tedious.
Thaman's music is extravagant, becoming a saving grace in many places. The album's theatre-friendly songs (Firestorm, Trance of Omi, and Guns N' Roses) have been made use of.
Post-Mortem:
For the next one decade or so, action movies will be invariably drawing inspiration from the treatment styles commanded by two filmmakers in particular: Prashanth Neel and Lokesh Kanagaraj. Beyond these two filmmakers, creative imaginations don't seem to exist (Rajamouli is inimitable). OG, the film under review, more than amply proves the same.
OG is a fan service film but it attempts to be more. It dares to make Pawan Kalyan recite a self-created Japanese verse when the most violent (?) villain is around. That's either idiosyncratic or a stroke of genius, depending on your taste.
Director Sujeeth opts for a relatively straightforward narration, which is a far cry from the style he had adopted in Saaho. He should have handled the tense face-offs and verbal sparring in OG in such a way that the conflict felt personal and inevitable.
Because the rule book says even a gangster movie needs family emotions, Gambheera has a wife who gets killed and eventually comes alive in his memories. The conversations between a CM and a patriarch feels like a sorry imitation of the Sarkar-style treatment. Even the punchlines don't land with the intended force. When the hero says "Only Gambheera's law holds", you don't find it whistle-worthy enough because of how run-of-the-mill the stakes are.
"Vaadi chaavu entha bhayankaranga undalante", a character says and you are like, "Of course, it will be". Gambheera is not thoroughly challenged by his circumstances. Emraan Hashmi's Omi Bhau lacks strategies that can be scary. The bad guys are generic, and they look all the more so because of the conventional dubbing.
The climax is a letdown by any standard. The kind of energy we see in the first half is utterly lacking as the film approaches the closing stretch.
Closing Remarks:
OG is a visually striking and fan-service action drama. But it is also weighed down by a dated storyline and a weak climax.
