Wild Dog Movie Review: Nagarjuna's Action Drama Aces The Staple, But Fails In Going Beyond

Wild Dog Movie Review Rating: 3/5 Stars (Three stars)

Star Cast: Nagarjuna Akkineni, Sayami Kher, Mayank Parekh, Atul Kulkarni, Dia Mirza and ensemble.

Director: Ahishor Solomon

(Pic Credit : Youtube/Matinee Entertainment)

What’s Good: the film delivers what it promises. Nagarjuna manages to evolve and continues to be the best of his generation at it.

What’s Bad: that it fails to go beyond what we have already seen.

Loo Break: the film has thrills and frills every 10 minutes. While it is intriguing till a point, it also begins to get jarring. Take breaks accordingly.

Watch or Not?: this time around, it’s entirely up to you. If you are a die heart Nagarjuna fan, you don’t even have a reason not to watch the film. But if you are going in with an expectation that Wild dog has anything different to offer, you will be disheartened a bit.

User Rating:

Inspired by an actual life incident, Wild Dog tells the story of an NIA officer Vijay Varma (Akkineni), who has a status of being ruthless to criminals. A blast happens, and turns out the mastermind is the same behind several previous blasts, and needs to be arrested. Begins a coup that travels various cities, and even countries to search him and bring him to India.

(Pic Credit : Youtube/Matinee Entertainment) Wild Dog Movie Review: Script Analysis

I said this in my The Priest review and will repeat it here too. It is a huge challenge to have a superstar headline your film, and you not making it his show ultimately. Wild Dog succeeds in that 50 per cent. The best part and maybe also a thing that makes it weaker is the fact that writer-director Ahishor Solomon and team of writers Kiran Kumar, and Priya Ranjan Panigrahi stick to their source material.

The film is inspired by a true event, where a team of NIA officers successfully busted a wanted terrorist in Nepal and brought him back to India. Wild Dog with its cast, manages to tell this story earnestly. It takes cues from the movies and web shows that have come before it and manages to make an intriguing screenplay. You even begin rooting for it. Because while Nagarjuna and his stardom do follow the film, expected realism isn’t thrown out of the window.

The set up is believable, and it is a commendable thing as compared to what we were used to watching in Telugu films a couple of years back. Now, of course there is suspense build around the main antagonist Khalid. While it is a cinematic device to create intrigue, it doesn’t seem unnecessary.

What did I mean when I said what profits the film is also what pulls it down? There are plot twists and turns to bring you on the edge of your seats every 15 minutes or 10 maybe. This is fun till a point, but post that becomes staple and unknowingly destroys the experience that the climax sequence is trying to create. We have already seen so much of it, that the outcome isn’t exciting me as it should.

That won’t hold me back from appreciating the subtle climax the movie owns. There are enough fight sequences, but the climax is clever.

Wild Dog Movie Review: Star Performances:

 It’s a Nagarjuna show but with logic. The fittest if the veteran South stars, the actor begins spreading his charm from the word go. He manages to kick villains, fire guns without looking immature and also makes it all look believable. What stops you a bit is makers showing him a father to a teenage girl. That is too much of a suspension of disbelief expected from a viewer.

The supporting cast has a powerful Sayami Kher, who manages to grab her spotlight from the star and looks convincing. But her, Mayank Parekh, and others are one tone single-note characters. In the surge of giving all the focus to Akkineni, the writers forget to give their supporting cast backstories. None get any, and thus we don’t emotionally connect to anyone of them.

Bilal Hossein gets to play Khalid, the antagonist. He gets the best build up to who he is. But ends up being the stereotypical Pakistani bad man that all the Indian film Industries have collectively fed on like vultures by now. Remember the antagonist in The Family Man, or Special Ops, they didn’t had their moments to give speeches, yet they were dreadful. Take cues.

Wild Dog Movie Review: Direction, Music

Ahishor Solomon in his direction, manages to create an impact where action, and fast movements are involved. He creates a world of the secret agents amid the civilians quite believably. What he doesn’t do is give emotions to them. Now, I am not asking for a love story, or a romantic song between all of the rush. All I wanted were the characters to have layers, that in turn churn out emotions.

The best decision involved in making Wild Dog is going zero on songs. The film doesn’t need it, and that is an appropriate thing to realise and do. S.Thaman manages to make a powerful background score that adds to the movie watching experience.

The set designs, locations, choice of landscapes and the vibe are perfect and visually appealing.

(Pic Credit : Youtube/Matinee Entertainment) Wild Dog Movie Review: The Last Word

Wild Dog fails to go beyond staple, and that bothers. It suffers the curse of déjà vu, which can’t be ignored. In case this genre lures you, go for it, but not with expectations.

Wild Dog Trailer

Wild Dog releases on 22nd April, 2021 on Netflix India!

Share with us your experience of watching Wild Dog.

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