ZEE5’s Lockup Movie Review: Vaibhav-Venkat Prabhu’s New Suspenseful Investigation Thriller
Lockup On ZEE5:
Lock Up, an investigative crime thriller Tamil movie to bypass theatrical release and make it to the leading streaming platform ZEE5. This is a thriller movie whose story is built on police conspiracy. The police officers are ready to do anything for promotion irrespective of the way they choose to get things done. It is tough to differentiate between a good and bad cop is what they say in one of the dialogues in this new Tamil suspense thriller movie. The movie is streaming now on 14th August on ZEE5. This time they have relased the movie without much hype and this is working in its favor. Lock Up is definitely a praiseworthy attempt in the investigative thriller space. Even though, the film has a predictable ending but it never gets boring with #SuspenseAtEveryTurn and manages to keep the audience engaged.
The Plot:
The film grabs the attention of the audience right from the beginning without wasting any time in plot development and characters introduce the plot. The scene opens with a phone call from a police commissioner, who assigns Eswari Rao to take charge of a case in which a police inspector is killed and a woman who dies by suicide. Eswari starts investigating the case as she suspects a connection between the two cases. She gets introduced to the local inspector Murthy (Venkat Prabhu) and his subordinate Vasanth (Vaibhav) while investigating the case. It’s not about the good versus the bad. It’s more a battle between bad versus evil. But that’s only a part of what makes the film different. A crime has been committed, everyone’s complicit and it’s a thin line that separates the officers from promotion or a life in the lockup.
In this crime thriller, Venkat Prabhu uses many people as dice for his promotion, but the story gets interesting as how actually Vaibhav uses him as dice for his promotion.
The Characters:
The debut movie of S.C Charles is written in a structured way without any major flaws.. Eswari Rao shines in the role of the investigating officer and it is also a refreshing change to see her not in the motherly role. Even though her character could’ve been written better, and could have given some screen time but still it was comforting to see her get some spotlight and shine in an male-dominated police stories. Venkat Prabhu, a popular filmmaker, acts as the cop with some secrets and makes it look realistic. Vaibhav, has a decent screen presence and owns his part convincingly. Vani Bhojan gets very little to contribute to the story whereas Poorna did a pretty good job as Malliga.
Why Watch? What is missing? :
The movie is not about good and bad but it is about bad and evil. Best part is even the plot becomes guessable at few instances but they never took the audience lightly and manage to hold the interest of the audience till the end with #SuspenceAtEveryTurn. The screenplay could have been better as the back and forth nature of the screenplay doesn’t seem very smooth. Finally, after weeks ZEE5 seems to have got it right with Lockup after previous tamil movies failed to impress the audience. Overall, a decent suspense thriller movie which is worth watching.
Another suspense thriller web series that you might consider watching is Mafia on ZEE5.