Navdeep, Kim Sharma and Bhumika starrer ‘Yagam’ is a pretentious film which tries to ‘experiment’ too much. The problem however isn’t that it experiments too much, it’s just that it’s a mediocre film in the end. Directed by Arun Prasad, the film has been produced by Raju and Praveen on ‘Silver Screen Movies’ banner. The film is a revenge drama which trails the life of a bartender as he mysteriously traverses the streets of Bangkok.

What is it about : Navdeep stars as Danny, a bartender in Bangkok, who’s leading a carefree life. He’s in a live-in relationship with his colleague, Sophie (Kim Sharma) and also both of them are love with each other. One day, Danny has a hallucination and dreams the death of a business man, Sanjay Arya (Rahul Dev). Sophie ignores his hallucination and later on Danny’s hallucinations reveal the death of an air hostess and another minister of Thailand Government. The shocking part is, all of them come true. Why does Danny hallucinate? How do all these three people die? This forms the rest of the story.

What is Good: The only thing the film gets right is a slick camera work by Bharani K Dharan. The fast moving camera coupled with some good action choreography gives a sense of urgency as the story moves through the crowded streets of Bangkok. Of the star cast, Navdeep is alright as Danny but it would have been better had he underplayed his character a bit. He’s good in parts especially in the action sequences. Kim Sharma sizzles in her role. Not that she offers anything new acting per se; she’s just good in her role. Bhumika makes a guest appearance in the film as an air hostess and she’s breezes through her scenes. Ajay and Harshavardhan are perhaps the only saving grace when it comes to acting in the film. Their dialogues and characterization as cops who are Telugu movie buffs partially saves the film from being an absolute bore.

What's Bad: ‘Yagam’ is a simple story which tries to adapt a different screenplay to increase your interest. Truth is it actually works up to a point. However, when the entire jig saw puzzle falls in place, it leaves a scent of a mediocre drama. A sense of déjà vu prevails, something which we have seen in plenty of other films in the past. Even Danny’s hallucinations look silly and out of place after a point. The story could have been more interesting had Ajay’s investigation commenced right after Sanjay Arya’s (Rahul Dev) death. Ajay has been portrayed as a brilliant cop with amazing power to imagine, the exact modus operandi of these deaths which he believes are in fact murders. His investigation could have turned this story into a cat and mouse chase had he entered the scene a bit earlier.

Technical Department: Bharani K Dharan’s cinematography is good, although the color grading, lighting looks quite pale. Mani Sharma’s music is hardly impressive and the same goes for the lyrics. Marthand K Venkatesh’s editing could have been a lot better in the first half of the film. It’s so haphazard that it’s bound to confuse the audience rather than evoking excitement. Arun Prasad, who had earlier directed couple of sensible films like ‘Thammudu’ and ‘Gowtham SSC’, falters a bit in his third attempt. His attempt to make a ‘different’ film is praiseworthy; however, it would have made more sense had he got his screenplay and narration right.

Bottom Line: The revenge drama depicted in ‘Yagam’ has been abused so much in Telugu cinema that it hardly hits you. The only difference here is that it has new faces, shot in Bangkok with people speaking Thai most of the time. The track where Ajay reveals the modus operandi of the crimes is one of the very few things worth mentioning in the film. My favourite scene of the film is when the cops take a dig on producers, directors in Telugu Cinema. The cop says those who have been protesting against piracy are the same ones who resort to piracy of English, Hindi and other language films to come up with new stories. It’s such a pity, perhaps bad timing, that this dialogue coincides with the recent issue raked up in the film industry. Overall, ‘Yagam’ is a mediocre film which tries to be too pretentious than what it’s actually worth. I wonder if the film had been any different had someone from the cast or the crew ‘predicted’ the fate of the film, just like what Navdeep does in the film. As far as from which film(s), has ‘Yagam’ been inspired, I would leave it for the director Arun Prasad to answer!