Public Talk: How Is ‘Saakini Daakini’?


Much like every Friday, this weekend too witnessed the release of four films in theatres. One of them is ‘Saakini Daakini’ which is an official remake of the South Korean action-comedy film ‘Midnight Runners’ and it is being produced by D. Suresh Babu, Sunitha Tati and Hyunwoo Thomas Kim. Sudheer Varma directed this film and the trailer got a decent response. Despite the decent promotions by the film’s unit, it failed to generate the required buzz.

The film managed to get negative talk right from the morning show. Going into the story, Shalini (Nivetha) and Damini (Regina) enter the academy for police training. They start to have ego issues and fight for everything. After a few circumstances, they become good friends. They go for an outing one night and witness a young girl’s kidnap. In an attempt to protect her, they discover that a huge mafia is behind it. Who is behind it? Why are they doing this? What will these two trainees do? The movie answers all these questions.

While the story and backdrop along with the characterization are okay but the audience claim that the movie is not engaging enough and the director could not narrate the film in an interesting way. Some even claim that the film is a bit boring too.

While the first half is quite slow, it appears okay but the second half is a major disappointment according to the audience. The taking of the film is good but the main fault lies in the content and even the logic goes for a toss in many scenes as per reports. The viewers are complaining that there are not enough twists in the movie and it runs on a very flat note from beginning to end. The movie failed to connect with the audience and they claim it as an OTT film.

But Nivetha Thomas and Regina impressed people with their comedy timing and stylish action sequences. They performed naturally and opined that Sudheer Varma’s screenplay could have been better. The director was nowhere seen during the promotions. There is a talk that the second half was made with the suggestions of another big director which created differences between the director and producers.

Richard Prasad’s camera work is commendable, whereas Mikey McCleary and Naresh Kumaran duo worked on the outstanding background score. Viplav Nyshadam’s editing is sharp too. In the end, they say that ‘Saakini Daakini’ is a film made strictly for OTT platforms but not theatres.