Director: Kiran Reddy
Cast: Bhargava Poludasu, Rakesh Galebhe, Poojitha Kuraparthi
Language: Telugu
This seems to be the season of Telugu films set in the United States. We first had Nishabdham, followed by Keerthy Suresh’s Miss India, and now the latest in line is Gatham that has released on Prime.
Gatham opens with a sinister title card, mentioning how every human being has a ‘psycho’ hidden within them! There is also then a flash of what’s eventually going to be the climax scene, where two characters on the run are shot by an unknown assailant. Preparing us for a slasher film perhaps? The scenes that follow do align to this theme. The film plays out as a flashback of sorts. We see a young couple on the road, Rishi and Adithi (played by Rakesh Galebhe and Poojitha Kuraparthi), stranded due to a car break down. They’re offered a lift by a stranger, Arjun (Bhargava Poludasu), who invites them to stay over at his place till they find help with the car. We also understand Rishi’s been in an accident recently that has resulted in him suffering from memory loss.
Once at Arjun’s house though, Rishi and Adithi realize they’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire, an unwelcome situation, the freezing sub-zero temperatures at Lake Tahoe where this story unfolds notwithstanding. They find this is more of a slasher’s den than a home and we also meet Arjun’s son who’s a serial womanizer and killer. While Rishi and Adithi find themselves trapped and doomed at this point, the film takes an interesting turn. There’s suspicion that arises that things may not really be what they seem. Are events before Rishi lost his memory connected to his current predicament? There is a suggestion that this might be the case and there could be darker secrets waiting to be unraveled.
Let’s first speak about the things this film gets right. I loved the atmospheric setting. The dark and freezing environs, a desolate house in the middle of nowhere with an ominous electric fence running around it and a multitude of shots with an eerie, low light setting (Manojh Reddy with some superb camera work) all contribute to create the ambient gloomy milieu this genre demands. The actors are all up to the task too and this film thankfully sidesteps certain blunders that plagued Nishabdham and Miss India, with respect to the dialogue pitch and accent.
What doesn’t work for this film though is two-fold. One, I found the plot to be preposterous, even allowing leeway for cinematic liberty. And second, the various twists that helped move the story along were simply too convenient. Sample this- when a grieving father is hot on the trail of his daughter’s assailant, the first clues he chances upon are a train route map, and a diary which basically has every confession written down in agonizing detail! The villain’s story arc also follows a similar tangent, the heights of which is a sequence where he instantly switches one of his victims (a Telugu girl in the USA), with the corpse of an orphan who looks exactly the same (what were the odds)?!
I understand Gatham’s story is based on a short film by the same director. I’ve not watched it yet, but I feel it could make for an interesting viewing. It’s never easy to extrapolate a stream of thought that manifested into a short film into a full-fledged feature and the director Kiran Reddy might have been better served to explore a completely new story altogether for this venture.
Overall rating: 2/5
