Matka Movie Review

Varun Tej joined hands with Palasa 1978 director Karuna Kumar for a period drama based on Matka Gambler Ratan Khetri. Varun Tej appears in many vintage looks since the story takes place between 1958 and 1982. The movie also has the popular actors Meenakshi Chaudhary and Nora Fatehi. Varun Tej’s last success was F3 and the actor pinned hopes on Matka. The trailer is interesting and let us see if the movie is matching up to the expectations. Here is the detailed analysis.

What Is It About?

A refugee Vasu (Varun Tej) and his mother came to Visakhapatnam in 1958. Vasu ends up in jail for a murder and becomes a fighter. Vasu’s daring nature and craving to become rich make him a powerful gangster. What is Matka how Vasu becomes the Natka King, and what happens to him after that is all about Matka.

Performances

Varun Tej put a lot of effort into his looks but he did not fit the bill as a gangster. Varun Tej looked young for a mature gangster. Meenakshi Chaudhary appeared in yet another bland role. Her role has no importance at all.

Nora Fatehi appeared in a role for the first time in Telugu while she entertained with the special numbers earlier. Nora gets a good role and she did fine in the limited presence. Nora Fatehi’s dance number is good.

Kishore, Naveen Chandra, Saloni, Ajay Ghosh and Ravi Shankar did their job in respective roles.

Technicalities

The background music by GV Prakash Kumar is loud and uninteresting. Le Le Raja and Tassadiya songs are good to watch.

Matka goes with ordinary storytelling and is far from what the Palasa 1978 director Karuna Kumar is expected to give.

The screenplay is flat. The cinematography is fine. The vintage properties and looks are fine. Varun Tej’s aged look towards the end looked odd.

Thumbs Up

Vintage Looks
Matka operating style

Thumbs Down

Old story
Cliched Narration
Lack of Thrill
Background Music
Lack of Depth in scenes

Analysis

A frustrated man investing his genius and guts to become a tyrant is a known story from many films. The path and the ploy might be different, but Matka has the same story narrated in a very ordinary style.

Matka is a period drama of a determined man who grows from rags to riches but with cliched scenes from the beginning till the end. The variation in Varun Tej’s looks from zero to becoming a gangster flaunts the effort. That goes vain with the storytelling is regular with predictable episodes with the incidents in the timeline.

The first half of the movie lacks the impact due to the flow of known scenes just to establish the obvious. It keeps pushing one scene after the other with the slides changing the years in a regular interval. The growth graph of the protagonist has nothing gripping or exciting in it. It is just a series of scenes with no depth or intensity to it.

Matka is not just a vintage action drama, but it uses a number of vintage ideas all along. From becoming a partner from being a worker, big shots taking his side, backstabbing, and even the hero’s wife’s aversion towards his wrongdoings, Matka offers the same old cliched elements.

The stubborn man enters the second half and nothing much changes with the style of narration. The template story gives a breather with very few interesting sequences about how the Matka gambling is operated and how the CBI uncovers the involved. However, the investigation quickly takes a commercial turn and enters the age-old pre-climax kidnapping episodes, followed by the anticipated climax zone. The two songs in the pre-climax and the conventional climax fight reiterate that Matka is still in the vintage narrative.

Matka reminds us of two recent blockbusters where the protagonist becomes a gangster from being nothing. But Matka is without all those good elements like the thrills, background music, high moments, and twists. The villainy did not make any impact.

Overall, Matka is just another commercial formula movie with foreseeable plot turns and anticipated reasons behind the protagonist’s hunger for money. From the story to execution, Matka is disappointing in all aspects.

Bottomline: A Bad Bet!

Rating: 2/5