“Taxiwaala”… A fun horror-thriller that juggles high concept and low comedy

Spoilers ahead…

Read the full review on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/taxiwaala-movie-review-vijay-deverakonda-baradwaj-rangan/

Had Taxiwaala been a new — as opposed to long-in-the-making — Vijay Deverakonda movie, it would burnish the halo around the actor so much more. (He signed the film before Arjun Reddy released and shot him into the stratosphere.) For we would have then said: Here is a star who is committed to the uniqueness of a script. (He plays Shiva, Hyderabad’s hippest cabbie.) A star who doesn’t care that he is off-screen for a large chunk in the second half. (A star who says, Anything for the movie!) A star who’s not going to force a romantic track into the film, to sate his female fans who want him in lover-boy mode. (The heroine, Priyanka Jawalkar, is used sparingly and painlessly.) A star who’ll allow the narrative to reduce him to a mere man. (Shiva makes a vow. He doesn’t quite pull it off. This is a far cry from our regular oath-taking heroes.) A star who’ll forgo action scenes, and can live with just one physical confrontation with the villain. (And even there, he’s no superhero.)

How much will the success of Geetha Govindam change Vijay Deverakonda? Will he continue to sign slightly off projects like this one? Whatever the answer to that question is, Taxiwaala is still a worthy addition to one of the more interesting resumés in show business today. After some narrative throat-clearing — Shiva struggles to find a job, et cetera — things get moving when Shiva decides he’ll take up the profession that gives this movie its name. He buys a 25-year-old Contessa, clearly unaware that, in cinema, the more personality a car has, the greater its vintage, the likelier it is to be inhabited by paranormal passengers. (Nayanthara in Dora was similarly clueless about her Austin Cambridge.)

Continued at the link above.

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