After several delays Akhil Akkineni’s Agent finally saw daylight. The actor has undergone a physical transformation and bulked up immensely. Now, was that necessary? Was it worth the effort? We will discuss this in the later part of this review. Agent has Akhil Akkineni, Sakshi Vaidya, Mammootty, and Dino Morea playing the main characters. The film is written by Vakkantham Vamsi and directed by Surender Reddy.
Ramakrishna (Akhil Akkineni) aspires to be a spy for India’s premier agency: Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). RAW is headed by Mahadevan (Mammootty), who is also known as Devil for the ruthless and stony ways in which he executes missions. And there is a G0d (Dino Morea) whom the Devil is after. This God is one step ahead of the Devil and foils all of RAW’s plans. Predictably, the Devil chooses Ramakrishna to accomplish his mission to capture God. So, Agent has very little to do with the world of espionage and more to do with the overt subtext that plays out like a Greek mythological story. It is more than evident that writer Vamsi decided to opt for this style of storytelling because writing a thrilling story about a RAW agent or the agency would demand more than surface-level research on the internet. And painfully, Vamsi seems content with his shallow understanding of the agency or the job.
A rudimentary online search reveals that to be recruited by RAW one has to clear the ‘Group A’ civils exam. Only individuals who clear this exam would be allowed to take the RAW exam. But in Agent, Ramakrishna leads a dual life claiming to be an ethical hacker while secretly preparing to be a RAW agent. Even his parents are kept in the dark about this. But why? Apparently this will blow his cover. Even before clearing the exam?
Anyway, Ramakrishna boasts about his ‘wild’ and ‘unpredictable’ nature and loves referring to himself as a ‘wild saale’ throughout the film. How does Surender Reddy sell this character to the audience? There are several dialogues with the mention of ‘wild saale’ in the film. If that is not sufficient, there is a full song called ‘wild saale’. This could be a drinking game: take a sip each time you hear ‘wild saale’.
To top it all, Akhil oversells his character with his loud performance, mouthing dialogues that are accurately ‘wild’. Like Ekalavya who chooses Drona as his guru, Ramakrishna is also a secret admirer of the Devil and keeps calling him ‘Guruji’ to make his equation more than obvious.
In this loud mess of a story, Sakshi Vaidya (playing the role of Vaidya) who is making her debut, plays Ramakrishna’s girlfriend. Sadly their relationship adds nothing to the narrative. And if it does, it is extremely contrived. You start wondering how small this world created by Vamsi is. Sakshi’s character is a mere afterthought, designed purely to fit into the commercial cinema format. While the actor tries hard to give a decent performance, her Telangana accent is terrible and extremely artificial! It is not just Akhil who performs loudly. To make up for the lousy writing, Hiphop Tamizha tries to elevate the film with his loud music. His high-decibel music is the only thing that prevents the audience from going to sleep. The songs are equally terrible and placed at odd junctures.
As Devil, a “ruthless patriot”, Mammootty tries to be memorable. But his character is so unidimensional that there is hardly any scope for him to perform. A wasted talent. Sadly, the action scenes also look artificial. In the climax, Ramakrishna is fighting goons with axes. And when one person strikes him with an axe, instead of cutting him deep the fake axe almost bounces off him.
According to Akhil’s father Nagarjuna, Akhil followed a strict diet and put in a lot of effort to build his physique for Agent. If only the writer had put in as much dedication to pen a decent script.
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 producers or any other members of its cast and crew.