Mantra( Charmi) is a woman with independent spirit. She is always cheerful and tries to keep everyone around her happy. She gets a job in Hyderabad and stays there as a paying guest. Mantra’s life goes on peacefully until she gets stuck in peculiar problems. Somebody tries to murder her and as a result she gets into serious trouble. In order to escape from such issues, she seeks the help of her police officer friend Vijay (Chetan). Vijay begins his investigation on these peculiar happenings and some shocking revelations come out of it. Mantra understands why such things are happening to her in the first place. What really happened? Who is trying to kill Mantra? Who is behind this heinous act? How would this problem gets solved?- forms the rest of the plot.
Performances:
Charmi: She is the biggest relief for this flick. Her effervescent acting is an asset. Charmi proved once again that she has the potential to make a film interesting just with her acting skills. Even without make up, she maintained her good looks with no mistakes. Her dance moves in the song Boom Boom were really good. However, there was on other strong character which would support Charmi’s performance which made her efforts go futile.
Chetan: He is an actor with great ease and if used well he can give a brilliant performance.
Bharani: He impresses with his experience in acting and seniority. Bharani gets the highest marks in Mantra 2 after Charmi.
Direction:
The main motive behind horror films is to make the audience scared and increase the fear factor. The level of success is proportional to this fear factor created. This was the biggest secret behind Mantra’s success. With a suspense filled first half and an explanatory second half, the audience would come out of theatre in a satisfied manner. However, this sequel doesn’t follow this pattern. Though the suspense elements were well established, the director failed to explain their happenings. The opening scenes of Mantra 2 came out quite well. But just after ten minutes of duration, the real mess begins. Lot of unnecessary sequences come into picture and the film progresses to a no man’s land.
First Half: The director chose to open the real story just before the interval bang. This itself means there is no story in first half. It doesn’t matter if there is no story, but the sequences weren’t designed effectively either. There was no pent up tension which would make the film gripping.
Second Half: It could have easily been gripping and interesting but the dragging continues here as well.Many scenes can be easily predicted by the audience. Some sequences are highly illogical and the director confuses the viewer more with his incomplete explanation of suspense. But the last five minutes of the film gets back the grip. Unnecessary characters, meaningless sequences and scenes which aim at commercial gain became the biggest factors for the failure of Mantra 2.
Merits:Technical Aspects:
Screenplay is of prime importance for a thriller movie. We have very few main storylines for a thriller and everything depends on the storytelling. Mantra 2 fails in representing a mediocre story with impressive story telling. If the film really had those scenes which are useful for the story, it could have ended in just 30 minutes. It says the flawed editing work of the film.
Music:
What is the use if the music is brilliant for a weakly told story? Because of the weak screenplay, good music remains to be wasted in this flick.
Cinematography:
It is the saving grace of the film. Good VFX and camera work made kept this film away from becoming abysmal.
Verdict:
Please don’t watch Mantra 2 by having its predecessor in mind. Unless you are a diehard Charmi fan, Mantra 2 is an avoidable fare.