Plot:

Jai Vardhan (Nikhil Siddhartha) is a super-smart RAW agent who is always ahead of both India`s friends and its enemies. His brother Subhash (Aryan Rajesh) died under mysterious circumstances, leaving his parents sobbing. RAW`s head (Makrand Deshpande) is meanwhile shell-shocked to learn that Kadhir Khan (Nithin Mehta), a weapons supplier and a most-wanted terrorist, is not dead yet.

The RAW chief assigns Jai the task of knowing Kadhir`s whereabouts. Kamal (Abhinav Gomatam) accompanies Jai on the mission. Saraswati (Sanya Thakur) is also around. Jai is not so pleased to bump into his ex-girlfriend (Iswarya Menon) while on a life-altering mission.

Performances:

Action-driven spy thrillers are expected to be saved by the hero when logic is dead on arrival. Nikhil Siddhartha is sincere but he alone can`t be the film`s saving grace. Despite director Garry BH`s attempts to build a larger-than-life aura for the hero, the `Karthikeya 2` actor delivers mixed output. 

Iswarya Menon puts us off right in the first scene in the pub. The idea was to show her as a cool, fearless agent but the execution doesn`t have the intended effect. Sanya Thakur barely registers her existence despite her presence in some crucial scenes.

Abhinav Gomatam doesn`t stop joking, making the film longer than it should have been. The tragedy is that his comedy is annoying after a point. "Allu Arjun enjoys fandom across the world," he says indulgently in the presence of a suspected terrorist during an anti-terrorist operation! 

The RAW guys and the baddies get uniformly lifeless characterizations. No RAW member talks like a real-life officer. As a result, Makrand Deshpande and others end up spoiling the show.

Technical Departments:

Music (songs): Not bad.

Background score: Decent.

Cinematography: Worthy of mention.

Production design: Respectable but nothing novel.

Analysis:

Spy thrillers are an over-exploited genre in the OTT era. Granted that novelty is difficult to be achieved in this scenario. But misleading the audience by projecting the film as a genuine exploration into the enigmatic vanishing of Subhas Chandra Bose is not tolerable. 

Writer K Rajasekhar Reddy (also the film`s producer) and director Garry BH don`t give us a wow hero either. Nikhil`s Jai is assigned the most difficult job with monumental stakes. In the second half, his superior calls him fragile, unstable and hasty! RAW is one of the most efficient agencies in the globe. Why would an unstable agent be entrusted with a mission with geopolitical and geostrategic ramifications?

In any case, the hero is not super-intelligent either. He connects the obvious dots and says things like, `They are planning a nuclear attack`. Such discoveries are made by a RAW chief in sleep in real life. The action scenes are affected negatively by artificial interventions. In one scene, Iswarya Menon`s character pops up. During a tense operation, Makrand`s character pops up. Everything looks artificial.

Rana Daggubati`s camo is effective because of the nationalistic and pro-Bose fervour it attempts to stir.

Merits:

Fairly rich visuals.

Sincere effort by music director (score) and the cinematographers.

Demerits:

Bland narration. The proceedings look lazy and sleepy.

Reducing RAW and its missions to elementary ideas.

Cheating the audience in the name of Bose.

The average action choreography.

Overall rating: 2/5

Box-office verdict: Unlikely to make much impact.