One of the worst misconceptions about comedy is that it does not require smart writing. It is easy to assume that the trifle and the trivial only require work in direct proportion to the appearance of their results. But what looks easy is arguably the hardest to pull off, and for good reason. It is one thing for the audience to believe that comedy requires no effort but it is an entirely different matter when the people responsible for telling a story believe that. Chaari 111, in its two hours 15 minutes runtime, consistently makes the fatal mistake of misinterpreting the challenges of its medium. The result is a laundry list of glaring shortcomings including a generic conflict, insipid gags, a laughably incompetent set of antagonists and a total waste of Vennela Kishore’s talents, that too at its maiden film as a protagonist, which also renders Chaari 111 as a waste of his unique comedic brand.
Director: TG Keerthi Kumar
Cast: Vennela Kishore, Samyuktha Viswanathan, Murali Sharma, Satya, Brahmaji, Rahul Ravindran, Subhalekha Sudhakar
A mall in Hyderabad is blown up by a suicide bomber who pops a pill instead of wearing the vest to do the honours. Major Prasad Rao (Murali Sharma), the founder of Rudranetra, a spy agency under the aegis of the former CM (Subhalekha Sudhakar), sets out to find the mastermind behind this suicide bomber. He enlists the services of the agency’s most incompetent and harebrained agent, Agent Chaari (short for Brahmachaari). Why is he hired for this particular mission? Unlike movies that would gun for an emotional reason, which usually involves a flashback with casualties, the answer is simple here. Every other field agent in the Rudranetra office is already busy with a mission. The only person they can now give the job to, is the person who has been kept out of the missions because of his incompetence. If you thought this was the only HR issue faced by Rudranetra, hold your horses.
When Chaari botches up a mission, Agent Esha (Samyuktha Vishwanathan) comes to the rescue. She dresses like a dream and does not waste an opportunity to kick her enemies, even going as far as stabbing them with her stilettos. Esha is Chaari’s back-up because it is Prasad’s policy to always have a back-up at Rudranetra. But why wasn’t Esha assigned to the job first? Why is she assigned to be a backup for someone who does not take his job seriously? Maybe Chaari is her senior. Maybe spy agencies function like any other workplace, where seniority sometimes has no correlation with skill or competence. We also find out in a different part of the film that the organisation has a history of hiring the children of ex-servicemen. A directive issued by Subhalekha Sudhakar’s character, because children of former soldiers are ingrained with patriotism. Yes, you heard that right. An extremely illogical and anti-meritocratic hiring bias to have, one that costs Rudranetra dearly.
The film’s plot has more holes than a slice of cheese, and its treatment is no less odorous. Chaari 111 is marketed to be a spy comedy but the comedy in the film is pretty much the same comedy Vennela Kishore performs in the twenty-odd films he appears on an average in a year. This may not even be a problem if the film found a way to customise itself around Vennela Kishore’s brand of humour. Maybe that was what the film’s makers were gunning for. But alas, we are handed gags that not only overstay its welcome but also make the audience shrug in incredulity. Chaari 111 shifts from comedy to drama to comedy in ways that only seem to reflect poor writing and decision-making. The film’s makers also opt to use green screens and an animated flashback, which only adds to its overall list of woes. Chaari 111 has little to nothing that works in its favour or the audience’s, and not even the most extemporaneous skillset of Vennela Kishore and Satya can save this sinking ship.
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