Eureka

When a Telugu film is set in college, it’s always either about celebrating college life, glorification of bad friendships, or even worse, infatuations. However, Eureka is neither of that, seeing as how it pulls off a thriller set on a campus. Director Karteek Anand, who also played a lead role, must be appreciated for trying a new genre and building a light-hearted thriller that works for the most part. The confusing screenplay and a draggy first-half however prove to be a drawback. Revanth is a hard-working student who wants to organise a college fest called Eureka on a grand note. He gets the required permissions to organise it and gathers student to pull it off. On the other hand is Yuva, a typical college thug who hates the college for ruining his reputation. His aim now is to put an end to the fest and he even gets into frequent brawls with Revanth in a bid to do that. One of their brawls goes to the extent that police interfere. However, on the day of Eureka, Yuva finds Revanth’s dead body. Fearing that he’ll be blamed for the murder, he gets out to solve the mystery before the fest ends. The love track between Yuva and his girlfriend (Dimple Hayathi) is boring and forcefully fitted into the tale. The flashback explaining the reason for Yuva’s behaviour could’ve been explained in a better manner. While the comedy is not that great, it definitely passes time before the film gets into the thick of things, which it does once Yuva sets out to find the killer with his friends (Abhay Bethiganti and Shalini Vadnikatti). Karteek succeeds in keeping the audience engaged with the twists and turns. Even though he takes a few cinematic liberties and forgoes logic, the fact that he attempted something new and even pulled it off for the most part says a lot about the debutant. Brahmaji plays the role of a lecturer and his performance is spot on, inciting laughter. Naresh Kumaran’s background score too helps the film for the most part. Karteek performs his role with ease and strangely chooses to smoke on-screen whenever he’s needed to deliver an intense performance. Munna is good enough in his role and the actresses don’t have much to do. Abhay and Raghubabu do well with what they’re offered. Eureka is no edge-of-the-seat thriller or an out-and-out crime drama. Sounds weird, but it is a feel-good film that revolves around a murder. If you’re not too particular about the logic of it all, this one’s a good weekend pick.

On the whole, Eureka is a murder mystery that has a few passable moments in the second half. Just to watch the last few interesting moments, one has to go through a boring, ill paced first half which spoils the mood of the audience and makes this film a below-par watch this weekend.