Akash Murali shines in Nesipaaya

Nesipaaya hit the headlines from its inception with Nayantara introducing the new kid on the Kollywood block, Akash Murali, son of ( late ) veteran actor Murali. He made a striking first impression at the Audio Launch of Nesipaaya with his co-star Aditi Shankar.

Akash Murali as Arjun in Nesipaaya

The movie starts with Arjun, played by Akash Murali, as a start-up founder who notices his ex-girlfriend on the news, accused for murder in Portugal. The whole story revolves around their love story and Arjun's blood stained efforts to save his girlfriend, Diya from a life sentence.

This leads to him teaming up with her lawyer Indrani, played by Kalki. As much as Akash's chemistry with Aditi Shankar left us warm and fuzzy, his scenes with Kalki were a blast. Kalki lending her own voice in Tamil made the film at large, a lot more authentic.

Akash and Aditi's performances felt original and big-screen worthy. For a debutante, Akash Murali made the audience forget that this was his first film as his ease in body language and goofy dialogue delivery almost reminded us of Madhavan in Alaipayuthey.

The love story had a unique narrative with Diya being the ambitious one and Arjun being a laidback lover without touching the "toxic" nerve.

Vishnu Vardhan - Nesipaaya

Kalki grabbing a chunk of the screen space in the second half, saves the movie since Vishnu Vardhan's script falls short after he establishes Arjun and Diya's love story. The second half is a convulsion of Kalki's bike rides, Arjun's altercation with Aditi's perpertrators played by Sharath Kumar and Khushboo and lengthy professions of undying love at the prison.

Sharathkumar playing the rich NRI in Portugal left a hard blow on the audience with his menacing demeanour, however fell short with a predicable back story in the whole web of murder. Khushboo exhumed dominance as a protective mother and ended the movie on a powerful note, though the scene leading to the climax was shockingly bland.

Actor Sharath Kumar and Prabhu deserved a bigger piece of the pie, but were left starved.

To conclude, Akash and Aditi Shankar shouldered the movie to the best of their ability inspite of the weak storytelling.