Voter

Story: Gautam (Vishnu Manchu) is an NRI who returns to India to cast his vote. When challenged by the woman he loves, Bhavana (Surbhi), to make a politician fulfil his campaign promises if he wants to win her over, Gautam sets off on a path to change the system.

Review: Voter is a film that aims to make the janata of India open their eyes to the power they hold in their hands. Be it the power to cast the right vote or to rercall it when unsatisfied with their elected leader, the film aims to make it clear that it is with the inked finger that the power lies. Had the film released before elections, maybe it would’ve been more relevant. But with the concept of re-call, it holds true now too. Except, the film is stretched so much even in its short run-time that things begin to get extremely repetitive. There’s only two numbers in the film but even those two begin to feel like too much.

Gautam (Vishnu Manchu) is an NRI techie his colleagues and boss seem impressed with in the one scene he gets with them. He visits India to cast his vote, harass, stalk and grope a stranger all while singing how he’s ‘6 Feet Tall’. Said stranger Bhavana’s (Surbhi) only fault and misfortune is that she happened to ask his help when police cordon off a road to let a minister pass by. After a million no’s from her side go unacknowledged; with Gautam making it his full-time job to follow her everywhere, Bhavana asks him to make the local MLA (Posani Krishna Murli) fulfil his election promises if he wants to win her, just to get him off her back. And hence, Gautam sets on a journey to make the local MLA and politician Bhanu Shankar (Sampath) realise their place in the world, as nothing but a public servant, if only to win over his girl and avenge his sister.

Just when Gautam gets past harassing Bhavana and into the thick of things, you just wait and wait for something novel to happen, but nothing really does. Voter is a film that’s extremely obsessed with social media as if it’s the early 2000s and indulges in the same old cat-and-mouse games that make you yawn. And as Gautam keeps muttering, “Outdated rajakeeyalu maaneyandi,” (you need to stop with the outdated politics) the audience is just left hoping filmmakers stop with the outdated scripts. Sadly there’s nothing worth appreciable on the technical side of the film too. This one’s a huge let-down.