Amigos (2023) [Hindi HQ-Telugu] 

Kalyan Ram played a double role in Bimbisara and delivered a blockbuster, and in Amigos, he tries to do a triple role. The Rajendra Reddy film had a good premise but its execution was below the mark, says our review.

Movies about doppelgangers are not new in Hollywood as we have seen in The Double or Enemy. But it is an interesting concept for a Telugu film where we find not two but three lookalikes who are extremely different from each other and yet connected irrevocably per chance. Written and directed by Rajendra Reddy, Amigos stars Nandamuri Kalyan Ram, Ashika Ranganath, Bhramaji, Saptagiri and others. And Kalyan Ram acts in a triple role in this film, starring as the three amigos (friends).

The director introduces us to Siddharth aka Siddhu (Kalyan Ram) who is a happy-go-lucky guy in Hyderabad waiting to meet the woman of his dreams. He coincidentally meets Ishika (Ashika) and falls in love with her and is set on marrying her. His parents and he go to formally ask for her hand in marriage and she ends up rejecting his proposal.

A dejected Siddhu is wondering how to win her over when he learns about doppelgangers and finds out that there is not one but two more guys – Manjunath (Kalyan Ram) from Bengaluru and Michael (Kalyan Ram) from Kolkata – who look exactly like him! The three meet up in Goa, become friends (Amigos) and that’s when it strikes Siddhu how he can win Ishika over. A plan is hatched, Ishika is won over and the two get engaged. But that’s precisely when trouble starts for the three amigos. One of them is the most wanted criminal – an Indian Pablo Escobar at that. Why does Michael want Siddhu in jail? Is the criminal caught by the National Investigation Agency?

At the outset, the storyline is interesting and, seeing the success of playing dual roles in Bimbisara, Kalyan Ram has gone the extra mile and played a third role in this Amigos. Director Rajendra Reddy has tried to give all three men – Manju, Michael and Siddhu – different characterisations, but he has succeeded the most only with Michael, who has come scope for performance.

The first half of the film is spent creating meet cute situations between Ishika and Siddhu and stretched with unnecessary scenes involving the families, Ishika’s job as RJ and so on. There’s just no chemistry between Ishika and Siddhu and their romance is insipid. It’s only when Manju and Michael enter that there is some life to the film, but then again, the cliched scenes and dialogues, that are liberally sprinkled, kill the momentum. Sample this – a hardened criminal who doesn’t think twice about killing people is shown as someone who spends copious amounts of time trying to help a man ‘patao’ his girlfriend. Like really.