‘Hyper’ is a psychedelic mix of superhero comics and mythology. It’s possible to enjoy it if you are in a soporific state and don’t care for trivialities like a storyline. There isn’t one and the sooner you accept it, the better it is for your mental equilibrium.
Ram Pothineni plays Surya, a young man who deeply loves his father, Narayan Murthy (Satyaraj). In his own words, Surya is ‘crazy’ about his father and will do anything to make the latter happy. Even if it involves following women around, trying to size up their backsides. Yes, you read that right.
In true epic style, when the ‘noble’ parent bestows an absurd notion on his devout ward, Surya decides to marry a ‘mystery’ girl - whose retreating backside is the only thing he is familiar with - only because his father proclaims that any family that she marries into, would be a blessed one.
The tragedy…sorry…‘comedy’ that follows has the hero and his friends running around the city of Vizag, checking out women’s backs, clicking snaps on their mobiles without the women’s knowledge, and trying to find the woman with ‘the’ backside. And this is just a mere whiff of the omnipresent misogyny in the entire movie.
The less said about the hackneyed plot, the better. Satyaraj as Narayan Murthy is an upright government servant, and he runs into the usual problems that honest people in a ‘bureaucrazy’ run into. It’s up to Surya to protect his father from the system, and he does this with plenty of meaningless violence and mayhem.
In the process, a sincere Satyaraj delivers a few fiery speeches on the importance of public servants discharging their duty, the ‘message’ that director Santosh Srinivas probably hopes will save his film from being judged as utterly nonsensical.
The problem though, is that way too many films have already pegged their flimsy storylines on this ‘message’, and it fails to have any more impact on the audience than a primary school elocution contest.
Rao Ramesh plays a corrupt minister breathing down Narayan Murthy’s neck. He has a number of shouty dialogues to spout and several illogical things to do, but he still manages to entertain and provide some respite to the long suffering audience.
Rashi Khanna, playing Surya’s love interest Banumathi, is given the enviable task of convincing our hero that her ‘front’ is good enough for him, and that he should give up the pursuit of an ideal ‘back’. No prizes for guessing that in an awesome (not) turn of events, she is the proud owner of the ideal ‘front’ and ‘back’. Phew!
Considering the camera focusses more on Rashi Khanna’s navel than her face, it’s only fair to decline commenting on the actor’s performance.
Ram Pothineni has good screen presence and does well in action sequences, but his character is so poorly written that much of the effort he puts into the film goes down the drain.
He comes across as a cocky, wayward young man, with a rather weird obsession with his father, that would get a psychoanalyst excited but not the average movie-goer.
Shoddy editing and too many songs - even when hummable - cripple the film, only making you painfully aware of all the time you’ve wasted sitting on your own backside.