Vyooham Review: An Interesting Premise Crumbles Under the Format

Director: Sashikanth Srivaishnav Peesapati

Cast: Sai Sushanth Reddy, Chaitanya Krishna, Preethi Asrani, Pavani Gangireddy, Shashank, Ravindra Vijay

Available in: Amazon Prime Video

Duration: 8 episodes

Before the advent of OTT web series, many stories felt suffocated by the traditional format of a 3-hour film with 5 songs stitched in between. Some films needed the tightness of a 90-minute Hollywood thriller and others needed the freedom of an expansive series where stories could be told in hours. Would Mahesh Babu’s Nijam be a fantastic 90-minute bone-chilling film without placating “family” audiences and ending up as a box-office dud? Would Chiranjeevi’s Anji be a great fantasy fiction told across multiple seasons if circumstances were different? After the advent of OTT series as an accessible and acceptable format, these problems were supposed to go away because storytellers had found different formats to liberate their stories. And yet, Vyooham and countless other Telugu web series suffer because they seem too rigid in their approach to storytelling.

Cut into eight episodes at roughly 40 minutes a piece, Vyooham struggles to stick to this format. It’s evident that some episodes needed to be shorter and some longer, and this story can’t generate a hook point every forty minutes. It might have been a mandate by the network rather than a directorial choice by Shashikanth Vaishnav but Vyooham is trapped within its format and struggles to be engaging. 

There is an excellent story in there somewhere. ACP Arjun Ramachandra is tasked with investigating the hit-and-run case of a pregnant Jessica (Pavani Gangireddy) who loses more than her memory because of the accident. Her husband  Michael (Chaitanya Krishna) is adamant about bringing justice to his family. As Arjun digs into the case he discovers that it’s a lot deeper than it appears and there are countless players with each having their connections to this case. 

The core argument of the show seems to be that no deed goes without having consequences and in a morally grey world every immoral action has a dastardly consequence. It could have been an excellent exploration of the sins of its characters whether it’s Michael, Jessica, a journalist Nirmala, or the other secondary characters such as the militants and antisocial elements. But Sashikanth is forced to explore more than what is necessary because of the need to run exactly 40 minutes per episode. We get countless sub-plots, meandering dialogues, and shots that linger longer than necessary. Think if a student could explain a concept in 100 words but they’re forced to write a 500-word essay and hence force themselves to fill up space using a thesaurus. That feels like his plight. 

It doesn’t help that the actors appear out of depth too. Sai Sushanth's interpretation of Arjun sticks to the textbook definition of a “good cop with a past”. He doesn’t have to bring in his flair but with inelastic source material, we are left hoping that the actors hook us to screens by charm or crook. Similarly, Chaitanya Krishna is unable to define Michael beyond the first-thought interpretations. The glares and glances all look derivative and familiar like he’s been told to hold a pose so that the camera can linger and a shot can be elongated. 

The reason I’m hesitant to blame the actors completely is because we’ve seen them digest complex characters and spit out charming interpretations in their earlier work. Whether it was through Anaganaga oka Athidhi (Chaitanya Krishna) or Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi (Sushanth), the actors made us look even if a scene was headed nowhere. But Vyooham tests our patience especially from episode two through six.

And when it manages to get to what it wants to say — the interconnectedness of the hit-and-run to the problems plaguing our society or the karmic nature of crime — the pulp in the series is juicier. 

But either owing to Sashikanth's rawness as a debutant or the forced manner in which a story is stretched to fit eight uniform 40-minute chunks, yet another Telugu web series loses its storytelling ferocity.