Varun Sandesh's Viraaji Review

Cast - Varun Sandesh, Raghu Karumanchi, Pramodini, Balagam Jayaram, Viva Raghava, Phani Acharya & Others

Director - Adhyanth Harsha

Producer - Mahendra Nath Kondla

Banner - M3 Media

Music - Ebenezer Paul

Varun Sandesh’s Viraaji promises to be a thriller. Varun plays a whacky character in the film with supporting characters also getting significant screen time.

A stand-up comic, gynaecologist, hotel manager, police officer and a drug addict, among others reach an abandoned mental asylum by a mysterious host, who informs them that they would all be dead by dawn. How are all these people related to each other? Why are they being threatened? Will they live to see another day or will they killed by a mysterious antagonist. The plot of the story is good but it fails in its execution.

Viraaji is a story of fear, crime and justice. It seems to have been shot mostly in a single location with few flashbacks scenes now and then.

Varun Sandesh makes a late entry in the film. The actor gets to flaunt his American accent in the film.

Pramodini gives an assured performance with her expressive eyes. Balagam Jayaram is another strong performer.

The run-time of the movie is 1 hour 40 minutes. And the audience might think that the movie would be short and sweet. But after watching the film, it seems like a long runtime. With a lot of lagged scenes. The film would have been better suited in a short film format. In the first half of the movie, one feels this is a horror movie buit the sequences that unfold makes you realise it's hard to connect the dots when the characters in the movie find themselves in an abandoned mental asylum. In the second half, where everything gets revealed. The film gets a bit lengthy in parts. The filmmaker could have paid a little attention to details here.

Verdict: The filmmaker had a perfect plot of sand mafia, but a little bit of deviation and losing a lot of time in establishing the premise is what killed the plot.