Ugram Movie Review | Allari Naresh | Missed to watch in theater but enjoyed watching in OTT

Ugram is the story of inspector Shiva Kumar (Allari Naresh), an honest cop who believes in doing good rather than sticking to the rules. He falls in love with Aparna (Mirnaa Menon) and they marry against the wishes of her father. They have a daughter, Lucky, and the only grouse his family has is how he puts his duty first.

The film is neatly divided into two distinct halves where the first half works as a typical cop drama with the protagonist addressing multiple social ills and teaching the criminals a lesson in morality by almost trying to kill them, while the second half is spent trying to find his missing wife and daughter. Post-interval though, the film feels like a drag and the clues the hero uses to solve the case, while actively contaminating them, come across as trivial and lazy to the audience. 

Director: Vijay Kanakamedala

Cast: Allari Naresh, Mirnaa Menon, Indraja, Sharath Lohithaswa, Shatru

Runtime: 122 minutes

Storyline: Tragedy strikes a dutiful cop when his wife and daughter go missing and he is prompted to solve the case

Kanakamedala uses too many plot points, haphazard narrative breaks, and unnecessary song and dance sequences which dilute the intensity of an already collapsing story. His choice to introduce “duplicate hijras” (according to him, these are men who cross-dress to commit crimes) to lewd sounds reinforces the harmful stereotypes associated with the community, and Shivakumar’s monologue on the struggles of the third gender in India comes across as mere lip service to avoid backlash from the audience.

The one saving grace is Allari Naresh’s performance. He is sincere and agile in decently-choreographed action sequences and his body language as a livid cop translates well on-screen despite his average dialogue delivery.

The audience might start feeling relieved and start rooting in the climactic action sequence, as was the case in my theatre — not out of adoration for the hero — but at the thought that we were close to the credits rolling across the screen. 

Rating - 3.5/5