B Jeevan Reddy’s George Reddy (2019) Movie Review

Movie Review: George REDDY
Star Cast: Sandeep Madhav, Satyadev, Yadamma Raju, Muskaan Khubchandani, Tiruveer, Abhay Bethigani
Music Composed by Suresh Bobbili, Harshavardhan Rameshwar
Cinematography by Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti
Edited by J Pratap Kumar
Written & Directed by Jeevan Reddy

Censor Certificate: UA & Runtime: 153 Minutes

George Reddy tried to raise his voice against oppressors and bring a student revolution from Osmania University campus with Progressive Democrat politics. He wanted the voices of Students to be heard loud & clear asking for an end to the age-old system that aides people in power & rich, dominants – caste wise and population-wise. We get to know about as a person who had many questions and who was a scholar but had a radical mind that never rested until he thought change is apparent. When you’re trying to tell such a person’s story what is your priority?

The simplest thing is to look at the motivation point. Is it his parents? Is it his nature to react? Is it his ideology based on other personalities? Jeevan Reddy says he is a mix of everything. As a kid, he was impulsive got trained in martial arts and he developed ideology based on revolutionary leaders like Bhagat Singh. But what is that one hook that makes you want him to react? That compels you to root for him? Jeevan has no answers and hence, the randomness takes over on the screen beyond your imagination. You see Rajanna played by Abhay Bethagani more clear in his shouting against everyone. Yes, the actor did not know how to play an impulsive person on screen and he shouted every line to just show that he is short-tempered. If the film had a love proposal with him in the center – it would have been a long shouting march with lady completely flabbergasted by his aggression.

Not just Abhay, everyone else even Sandeep Madhav as George Reddy gets a monotonic role. You can just end the film in 15 mins with fast-paced cuts and two motivational speech scenes precisely at 5-minute breaks. This film works more that way than a 3-hour longgg screenplay. New characters get introduced, people change randomly, time flies, time stops but the camera keeps moving. It is like a 3-hour action sequence manifested crime drama rather than a biopic. A biopic is more about the person than his boxing kicks. Generic question.

George Reddy was a nuclear physicist with a bright future calling him to join Indian Space Research. George Reddy was a bookworm who wrote papers, poems, and motivated others to educate themselves. George Reddy became powerful enough for many to see him as a thorn in their plans. Just because he hits people or talks after impulsively reacting to a situation, that doesn’t make him a rowdy. You expect this from the film. But all get is again randomness. George Reddy had he been alive would have raised his voice against the film and asked the makers to see his true-self and interpret it rather than kill his image as an impulsive leader who had broad ideas but was never motivated by anything.

He would have had stories of oppression to tell and why he wanted his agenda to be Progressive Democratic rather than Socialistic. He would have tried to explain to people the necessity to concentrate on the issues and education system rather than just say that we should fight like he is shooting blanks. A person’s story will always be lively to hear if the person is a poor narrator as they have a passion for giving an explanation. But here Jeevan just interpreted it as a regular masala film where every 10 minutes, an action scene has to happen and the camera needs to move at 10 miles per hour speed in each shot. There is no necessity for ideology clashes, no necessity for explanations from the principle character and absolutely there is no necessity for cohesive structure as well.

All in all, we start the film in Rang De Basanti mode and end it like The Descendants. The motives of characters are never explained and you can’t fill in the blanks with simple touches. For suppose, you can interpret the final scene as a character asking for Gun Violence to come to an end as it is required for today’s society at the same time, it looks like a very random act to show that a person left something dear to a person in order to say goodbye. With all random scenes and performances where nothing holds together the plot, such kind of interpretations are criminal for a biopic. Iruvar, a classic political biopic shows you how to reveal motivations and interpretations which you can take them at surface level or dig deep. Here, all we get is people trying to shout in the name of acting and camera trying to move at random speed. It seems like Krishna turned into Shakuni and made Arjuna into Duryodhana at random because he can in Jeevan’s interpretation.

Theatrical Trailer: