Lie movie review: A one-time watch

Cast: Nithiin, Megha Akash, Arjun, Nasser, Sriram, Ravi Kishan, and Purnima
Director: Hanu Raghavapudi
Rating: 3 stars

The promotional videos of LIE created quite a buzz as well as some high expectations from the crowds. As the title suggests, the film showcases a mix of emotions and elements through its characters and storyline.

The story:

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is looking for a criminal Padmanabham (Arjun) who is absconding since many years. He is expert disguiser and repeatedly changes his looks to escape the authorities. The agency’s commissioner (Ravi Kishan) gets some insider information from one of his agents about a specially-designed disguise suit being dispatched from old city in Hyderabad to Las Vegas. The commissioner then sends two agents to Las Vegas to follow the suit and nab the criminal in the process. Interestingly, no one has seen Padmanabham so they don’t know what he looks like.

On the other hand, a girl Chaitra (Megha Akash) dreams of visiting Las Vegas and tells her parents that she wants to marry soon so that she can go there for her honeymoon. Her marriage gets cancelled in the last minute and she finds out that the travel money cannot be refunded. So she decides to travel alone and meets Sathyam (Nithiin) during the trip. Though they hate each other initially, they fall in love later. Sathyam, however, lies to Chaitra about many things. In the meantime, criminal Padmanabham comes to know that two agents have entered the US to nab him and he wants to kill them. Sathyam’s connection with the NIA mission as well as with the criminal forms the crux of the story.

Rest of the elements:

Director Hanu Raghavapudi has come up with an interesting plot for LIE which stands for love, intelligence and enmity. He has cleverly mixed all the three elements as the film begins with the journey of the lead pair and their love story.
Next, in the US, he takes us into the minds of the intelligent villain and the protagonist, both of whom play hide-and-seek with each other. The movie finally takes up the element of enmity (between the protagonist and the villain) He weaves together all the story elements in a very classy and stylish manner. The director has received good support from the technicians and the support cast. The visuals are rich and the action scenes are on par with Hollywood standards. However, the climax could have been better and more gripping.

Characters and performances:

Hanu has established Arjun’s character well by showing how he can change his looks within minutes to escape the cops. He is one of the pillars of the film and is stylish with his mannerisms being on point. Debutante Megha Akash is beautiful, and played her part well.  Arjun has been introduced in a negative role for the first time.

Another interesting point is that Hanu shows the protagonist, Nithiin, as a reckless man initially, but later includes him in the mission cleverly, which makes his character interesting. The actor hasn’t done this kind of role earlier, and his hard work is evident.

Sriram looks adequate as  NIA agent while Ravi Kishan’s role surprised many.  Yuvraj’s cinematography  and the action scenes have also been choreographed well. Mani Sharma’s background score is an asset to the movie. On the whole, LIE has a different and interesting story, which has been aptly narrated by Hanu. Nithiin and Arjun have given great performances, which makes for a  one-time-watch.