‘Bad Manners’ movie review: Suri and Abhishek Ambareesh’s crime drama loses its zing after a promising start

Abhishek Ambareesh in ‘Bad Manners’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The first half Bad Manners is a typical Suri film. We are introduced to a world where committing crime is the order of the day. Characters embody pure evil, and the narrative keeps jumping to different timelines. The director plays it to his strength, forcing you to excuse his repetitive treatment to a crime drama.

Rudresh, A.K.A Rudra (Abhishek Ambareesh), is a police officer who loses his service weapon. He goes in disguise to a town called Goda to buy a 9MM pistol. Suri creates Goda, a place where even children make all types of guns (from machine guns to pistols) with great attention to detail. In Goda, a gun-maker is at loggerheads with two eccentric, dangerous criminals. Meanwhile, a kidnapping case opens another dimension to the story.

When Bad Manners went on floors, the biggest question people had in mind was, “Can an idiosyncratic filmmaker like Suri offer a great launchpad to a star kid?” (Abhishek Ambareesh is the son of late Kannada superstar Ambareesh). There is no one answer to this. 

Abhishek’s performance isn’t lousy, compared to his debut movie Amar. Here, while he is convincing in portraying the aggression of a police officer, he appears robotic in emotional sequences. Suri tries to balance his style with the demands of a star-vehicle and succeeds marginally.

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The writing (Suri has co-written the script with Amri) goes downhill in the second half. In a bid to show the rise of Rudra as a police officer, the film becomes generic, and the half-baked love story (involving Rachita Ram) further dents the film. There are silly scenes that attempt to justify the movie’s bizarre title. Like in Suri’s Tagaru, even Bad Manners has people, from Rudra’s mother (Tara) to his higher-up (Sharath Lohitashwa), preaching about the responsibilities of a police officer.

The biggest problem with the second half of Bad Manners is that it fails to have an air of intrigue around it. The plot runs in circles, making it difficult to sit through. The reverse chronology screenplay, helped by brilliant editing, worked well in Suri’s previous film Popcorn Monkey Tiger. But the same technique in this film feels gimmicky, adding no value to the plot. Charan Raj’s psychedelic score gets lost in this confusion, and cinematographer Shekhar’s exaggerated angles and intense colours remind you of Suri’s previous films as well.

Suri is one of Kannada’s finest filmmakers of the neo-noir genre. Even if he never let go of his pet theme, he made gripping films in his prime. His big mark of improvement was Kadipuddi, in which he was brave enough to portray a hero with grey shades.

He cut loose from his reputation to make Kendasampige, a fantastic road thriller headlined by newcomers (Varun and Manvitha Kamath). Tagaru was an excellent attempt at reinventing the masala genre with a star actor. But with Popcorn Monkey Tiger and Bad Manners, it appears he is back to his indulgent self, and the films show the perils of being caught up in your own web.

Bad Manners is currently running in theatres