Next Nuvve

Kiran is a TV serial director who makes the serial ‘Samsaram Semiya Upma’ with his girlfriend Smita (Vaibhavi). But, when the serial gets canned and he’s given a week to pay back the loan he took from thugs, he finds himself in a fix. Luckily for him, his father has left him a palatial ‘palace’ in Araku (which is in fact just a house, but the characters insist on calling it a palace) and he finds a solution to his problems. He turns the house into a resort with the help of Sarat (Brahmaji) and Rashmi (Rashmi Gautam), but all the guests start to die one after another in curious ways.

The movie opens with a title card which shows a quote by Alfred Hitchcock, “Where drama begins, logic ends.” But despite that fair warning, one expects the film to have some semblance of consistency simply because it’s a film. But ‘Next Nuvve’ that calls itself a horror comedy has neither horror nor comedy, unless you count outdated, horrible looking CGI ghosts and double entendre jokes filled with sleaze. The film doesn’t have anything resembling a story either, with the screenplay filled with plot-holes so big, one could drive a truck through them.

‘Next Nuvve’ starts out on a promising note, keeping the viewers engaged for a while with Brahmaji’s character arch, promising them a gem in midst of all the muck. But right before the interval, a silly and nonsensical explanation is provided, with a lot of edges left untied. The same carries through in the second half with numerous questions left unanswered, or worse, answered with silly tropes. In fact, one key question in the film is literally answered with a ‘I don’t know’, no further explanation given!

Being Saikumar’s son, it is understandable that too much might be expected of Aadi as an actor. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t seem to shine in this one, which his face refusing to emote. Vaibhavi and Rashmi do an okay job of the unfortunate characters they’re offered – regressive, cat-fighting women whose only aim in life is to either be a gold digger or to tempt a man. It is only Brahmaji who makes the best out of his character. Despite his character arch having all kinds of inconsistencies, he manages to keep the viewer invested in his character, Sarat. Eliciting laughs here and there, his potential just seems to be wasted in the film. 

Give this one a miss, unless you’re patient enough to sit through two and half hours of sleaze and random occurrences just for Brahmaji, because he’s the only one saving this film.