‘Pepe’ movie review: Vinay Rajkumar’s action drama is stylish yet shallow

Vinay Rajkumar in ‘Pepe’.
| Photo Credit: PRK Audio/YouTube

In Pepe, director Shreelesh S Nair’s pillars of support are music composer Poornachandra Tejaswi and cinematographer Abhishek Kasargod. The director’s world-building is driven by Tejaswi’s chilling score and Abhishek’s flamboyant shots

Shreelesh sets up Pepe with fine conviction. Apart from the backdrop, he introduces plenty of characters to raise curiosity. When we hear the story of two fictitious villages divided by a stream, it’s as if we are gearing up for an epic to unfold. People from one sector care about reputation while those on the other side struggle for livelihood.

The oppressed are exploited by people from the dominant caste for sand mining from the stream. One brave family from the downtrodden questions their right for equality, and all hell breaks loose between the two groups. Pradeep A.K.A Pepe, a short-fused youngster, is at the centre of this resurgence from the oppressed. He is known for going after things denied to him.

Apart from caste discrimination, the film is vocal about women’s rights. Kaajal Kunder plays a young woman from an upper-caste family. She is an odd one out in the conservative family, encouraging young women to question the prejudice against them. 

The film keeps cutting back and forth between scenes from the present and past. The flashback is in black and white, almost as if revisiting an old album. Some powerful dialogues do justice to the film’s progressive outlook.

After doing all the hard work to establish the core plot, Shreelesh throws his hands up in the air, and Pepe crumbles under the weight of the film’s own expectations. The idea of taking a stand with the downtrodden is appreciable. However, Shreelesh falters is in the execution of his subject as he he fails failing to show the everyday lives of the local people.

Pepe is a violent film with plenty of action sequences. Some of the action scenes are choreographed creatively, yet, the gruesome fights don’t leave a lasting impact because of the sheer absence of drama in the second half. The blood-fest inevitably kills the intrigue in the movie.

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He goes through a range of emotions, but we see a straight-faced Vijay Rajkumar delivering a performance that’s no different from his previous filmography.

The screenplay, after a point, keeps running in circles. You feel the filmmaker is too adamant to take the story forward as characters struggle to overcome the trauma from their past. One big reason for this lack of urgency in storytelling is the current trend of releasing one film in two parts. Pepe, too, “shall be continued“ according to the makers. But isn’t it always better to tell a solid, engaging story in one part?

Pepe is currently running in theatres