Nagarjuna’s The Ghost competed at the box-office with megastar Chiranjeevi’s Godfather, a remake of the Malayalam film Lucifer. But director Praveen Sattaru’s The Ghost is not completely an original film either. It is a mix of many Hollywood films, particularly Avengers: Endgame and John Wick. The tragedy of replicating scenes from these films is that both are super popular and audiences can spot them easily.
Nagarjuna plays Vikram, an Interpol officer who is an excellent marksman. His daily work involves gunning down criminals. Priya (Sonal Chauhan) is his colleague and girlfriend. The duo eliminates criminals with perfect headshots – like it’s a video game. After situations force Vikram to retire, his anger, triggered by past trauma, ruins his relationship with Priya and they break up.
Although there is a ‘romantic’ song right at the beginning immediately after an action sequence, which ruins the initial excitement, most of the scenes in the first half come across as relatively fresh. The director mostly succeeds in not succumbing to the tropes of mainstream films. However, the promising start does not last long. A retired Vikram now takes up an assignment to protect Anita Nair (Anikha Surendran) and her mother Anu Nair (Gul Panag). Anu’s father raised Vikram, so he takes it upon himself to protect them from the impending dangers from their business rivals.
Whether Vikram succeeds in his mission to protect Anita and Anu forms the rest of the story. The Ghost has several action sequences. And both Nagarjuna and Sonal nail these sequences. The action choreography is slick. However, it is the weak and predictable story that makes the movie a snooze fest. There is no compelling drama, which is made worse by a contrived screenplay. After Nagarjuna takes up ‘freelance’ work, the enemies he came across in the past in Dubai somehow conveniently become part of the story happening in Ooty, India. Priya, who shifted to the Narcotics Control Bureau in Mumbai, also becomes part of this story. The world is really small I guess.
Gul Panag’s poor lip sync also ruins the pleasure of watching the movie. One can easily make out that the actor is mouthing lines in Hindi. Some of the computer graphics also are poorly executed. In one scene, when a man’s chopped head is shown, you can tell that it is a dummy.
The director relies heavily on the audience’s penchant for violence and fascination for BIG guns. So, we obviously have a KGF and Vikram-like slo-mo gun scene. But at least the background score should have been a little original.
The Ghost rests on the shoulders of Nagarjuna, who delivers the performance expected of him. But other than that, most characters are just stereotypes who exist merely to drive the story. Sonal does not have much screen time, but it is compensated with an action episode where she fights a villain. Anikha is a typical rich brat who eventually turns into a quiet and obedient girl, like in most films. Further, Praveen Sattaru incorporates popular scenes and narratives from Hollywood films to his story wherever it becomes boring and it feels that he’s doing patch-work for a punctured tyre. But the tyre has suffered numerous punctures. Better replace it with a new tyre!
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.