Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes - Bodies on the Beach

Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes 

2024, Telugu 

Genre: Crime Comedy

Where to Watch: Amazon

Director: Writer Mohan

Stars: Vennela Kishore, Ravi Teja Mahadasyam, Ananya Nagalla, Muralidhar Goud. Siya Gowtam

Mohan's Measure ⭐️ 

Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes is touted as a family comedy, but neither comes to mind when trying to describe it. It is, unfortunately, a first time director's poorly executed telling of an equally bad story. 

Vennela Kishore plays the character that he seems to know best, a slightly disturbed, deeply insecure man with questionable lifestyle issues putting on a facade with endless cynicism and improv humor. As such, he is a fair, but somewhat forced fit for mimicking the bumbling but intelligent Agent Sai Srinivas Atreya. But the Director is trying very hard to prove that he too can work off the Monk motif.

The movie starts with all the pieces in place, but hanging by a thread. The Rashoman effect is employed to interview several people about a young woman's body found on the beach. But, the stereotypes used in flashbacks steer the audience into accepting the ridiculous. This is especially so in the case of the lesbian character, whose attempted rape of the victim is taken as expected, given her "lustful nature." Adding to this are the three drunken fisherman, who openly admit to raping another young woman on the beach, and are not punished for their crime. The mastermind behind the murder cannot be revealed but let's just say they meet the same misogynistic archetypes of the rest of the movie. There is no speaking of arrests or law and order here. This is more a sudoku for our hero to solve, because this, after all, is a "family comedy."

As if all this weren't bad enough, wait until you find out the humor in the uneducated parents accompanying this little boy. Actually, don't wait, because it is as irritating as the rest of this movie.