Ram Srikar
And the treatment only adds to the complications. There’s a fun spin to the ideas we have seen many times before. By no means, is a realistic film. It is, in fact, highly self-aware and there's no place for logic here.
The protagonist, Abhinay (Nithiin) is trying to follow a film’s script and enact it in the real world, with a real villain named Nero (Sudev Nair) and actual consequences. It’s a brilliant idea that produces some hilarious moments that double up as an ode to commercial cinema.
However, the way the drama unfolds is not entirely convincing and regardless of how much leeway I tried to give the film, it just kept pushing the limits of silliness to a point where I stopped taking the film seriously.
It’s not like the film ever tried to be serious, but after a point, everything—from the characters to stakes and the conflict—feels silly and it’s partly intentional.
The ‘extra’ in the film’s title alludes to Abhinay’s profession. With aspirations to make it big as an actor someday, he spends his days as a faceless, voiceless extra in films, and getting slandered by his father Somashekar (an over-the-top but funny Rao Ramesh).
It wouldn’t impact the overall story one bit and in fact, we would have been spared of a stretch with references to Telugu film stars, and two songs in the second half that do nothing but impede the flow of the story just when the drama gets interesting.