Review Hunt: A lazy chase with no highs

Amartya Smaran

Hunt directed by Mahesh Surapaneni and produced by Bhavya Creations stars Sudheer Babu, Srikanth Meka, and Premisthe fame Bharath. Popular music director Ghibran, who predominantly works in the Tamil film industry composed the score.Editor Prawin Pudi masterfully stitched the sequences shot by cinematographer Arul Vincent, while the duo Bryan Vigier- Renaud Favero choreographed the action sequences.

Assistant Commissioner of Police– P. Arjun Prasad(Sudheer Babu) is a tough cop. Mohan (Srikanth Meka) is Arjun’s superior and a close friend. The new ACP Aryan Dev(Bharath) strikes a chord with Mohan and Arjun and the trio shares a wonderful bond.

However, ACP Aryan gets shot by an unknown sniper in broad daylight soon after accepting a prestigious award. Aryan’s best buddy Arjun Prasad takes up the case.

However, he meets with an accident and loses his memory in the midst of solving the high-profile murder case. Would ACP Arjun Prasad be able to hunt down the suspects and regain his lost memory?

Director Mahesh picks a rather complicated plot– A ripped athletic police officer trying to solve a gruesome murder mystery while tracing his lost memory!!! Our protagonist joins the police force right after recovering from a serious accident. He doesn’t remember the names, places or for that matter, he absolutely forgets the fact that he’s a top cop! Thanks to Mohan(Srikanth Meka), who covers up everything and asks Arjun to solve the case. He says to Arjun, “You just lost your memory, not the ability to think!”. That’s what I’d keep telling myself ahead of every test in school(haha).

It’s a wonderful thought but how can someone who just lost all his memory take up such an important case? Alright! It’s a movie but did the creator succeed at telling a compelling story? I’m afraid not! The film is titled ‘Hunt’ but we don’t get to see the director’s zest for hunting. Therefore, the lack of energy shows on the screen.The story does have great potential but the director couldn’t make the most out of the idea.

The screenplay cuts back and forth between the present and the past. The present deals with Arjun B who is trying to figure out who he is and the past focuses on Arjun A; the ruthless cop who’d go to any extent to solve a case.The cause-effect logic doesn’t coherently add up as a result of the constant cuts between the past and present.

This doesn’t mean the pacing of the film was bad. It sits really well with the screenplay but the only problem here is that the audience is not left with enough excitement to solve and find out the answers for themselves. For example, there’s a good action sequence where Arjun B fights the goons. Why did that even happen? We’ll have to wait till the second half only to get a boring answer from a terrorist’s son!

Hunt tries to include several themes here. On one hand, we have the cops who set out on a mission to take down terrorists at one point which seeps into the screenplay in a very unusual manner. And then we have this wonderful bromance of the trio coupled with a gory murder and the lead character losing memory. Also, the film touches upon the themes of sexuality and romance in the most casual manner. Following up with the casual treatment of sexuality and romance, one must give it to Sudheer Babu for at least taking up the challenge. He does shine in one particular scene where he can’t identify his long-time lover. Now, that’s some good direction from the creator.

There’s conflict and excitement. You’re rooting for the character and begging him not to mess up. You’re completely in the scene. Unfortunately, all this happens at the fag end of the film. If only director Mahesh showed the same skill of building real drama throughout the film.

Mahesh does a good job with this particular dreamlike sequence where Arjun hears all kinds of voices overlapping with the hazy montages on the screen. Cinematographer Arul Vincent crafts all the shots with great skill and it does show the character’s struggle to get back to his old self.The action choreographer duo  Bryan Vigier- Renaud Favero do what they do best. The chase sequences look flawless and thankfully, don’t defy gravity for once. There’s nothing to complain about that but including more action scenes would make the movie more interesting.

When the trailer came out, people believed Hunt to be an action film but it only pretends to be an action thriller. Music director Ghibran doesn’t do much to amp up the dry dialogues either.There’s one item song in the film and sadly enough, it is only forgettable in all ways possible.The majority of the film relies heavily on lackluster dialogues and explanations. The narration is so flat that the theater literally turned silent after a while and that’s unacceptable for a film titled Hunt.

Sudheer Babu’s Hunt tries hard to be an engaging action thriller but everything lacks that oomph factor from the direction to music to performances. Sudheer’s fans call him a ‘Nitro Star’. Perhaps some ‘Oxygen’ is what he needs to make a great comeback with his next film.