‘The Ghost' Film: An Attempt with Scattered Shadows : Review By Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

 ‘The Ghost' Film: An Attempt with Scattered Shadows

Review By Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

The spree of Netflix Movies watching by me and my wife continues irrespective of the film older or old.  The click of the buttons this side took us to ‘The Ghost’ film, released in October 2022. This was produced by Suniel Narang, Puskur Ram Mohan Rao, and Sharrath Marar under the banners of Sri Venkateswara Cinemas and Northstar Entertainment.  Directed by Praveen Sattaru, an acclaimed Indo-American directed the film, which stars Nagarjuna Akkineni in the lead role, alongside Sonal Chauhan, Gul Panag, Anikha Surendran, and Manish Chaudhari. I understand the film struggled at the box office, attributed to mixed to negative reviews.

The chronicle of The Ghost ambitiously ties together disjointed links. The story oscillates between Hero’s haunted past, his confusion with global crime syndicates, and volunteered responsibility of protecting his alienated sister Anu (Gul Panag) and her daughter Athithi (Anikha Surendran). The director’s attempt to systematize these scattered threads falls short and feels unconvincing.

What stands alone in the film is the characterization of Athithi, which is handled with remarkable finesse. The actress Anikha Surendran’s vulnerability, emotional connect with her uncle, and the link between her safety and the underworld’s machinations drives the film’s emotional current, balancing the darker shades of the plot. In contrast, the relevance of Priya (Sonal Chauhan), portrayed as a fellow officer and partner-in-arms to Nagarjuna, remains ambiguous, lacks narrative conviction, and serving more as an accessory than a fulcrum in the plot.

Further, the very perceptive point is that, in the very opening of The Ghost the film director sets a tone, the link of which is not carried with clarity. A boy in the very opening mission, the one Nagarjuna (Vikram) tries to rescue during an Interpol operation, is tragically killed despite his best efforts. That boy obviously is a hostage in an underworld-linked mission, for which no clarity, before the family story of Anu and Athithi comes into focus.

Likewise, in the initial scenes, the boy who was shown crying, by the side of her mother’s death body, who was killed in communal violence during the 1984 Delhi riots. This backstory is revealed as part of Vikram’s haunting memories. That trauma shapes his psyche and explains, at least in theory, why he becomes both ruthless in action and emotionally protective toward children like Athithi. The connection remains half-baked. While the film uses the riot tragedy as a dramatic opening, it does not weave it deeply into the screenplay.

Notwithstanding all this, Vikram becomes emotionally distant, and cultivates the ruthless, almost spectral image that later earns him the title ‘The Ghost.’ The boy’s killing was a symbolic turning point in Vikram’s arc. Once the narrative shifts into the corporate-underworld track, the boy is never mentioned again, making the opening merely as a ‘Character Setup.’

The overwhelming irrationality of mass killings carried out by Hero Vikram weakens whatever little emotional connect it had. The action sequences often slip into excess, turning the central figure into an implausible killing machine. Such violence entirely detracts from the credibility of the story. The abrupt ending, where the underworld leaders are conveniently driven away and the hero walks into the shadows to earn his image, leaves a sense of incompleteness. The production values are apparently high, befitting a film that starred Hero Nagarjuna.

The Ghost is a film of striking moments but uneven impact. Its strength lies in the systematic attempt to weave disjointed links, family sentiment, historical trauma, corporate power games, and underworld violence, into one cinematic frame. But its weakness lies in the excess: irrational killings, ambiguous character relevance, and an ending that fails to live up to the buildup. There are precisely few areas where The Ghost is completely ambiguous, and as a result they affect how the film is received.

For instance, Vikram Naidu, an Interpol officer specializing in handling organized crime and high-profile threats. The film opens by giving credibility to his skill set and ruthless efficiency. Once his personal life (protection of Anu and Athithi) takes precedence, his ‘Interpol Officer’ identity becomes blurred, overshadowed by vigilante-style killings. Priya is introduced as Vikram’s Interpol colleague, combat partner, and as a professional of equal stature, joining him in dangerous missions and action sequences. While her position is clear at the beginning, her functional relevance later in the narrative is ambiguous, which makes her character appear underutilized.

Pankaj (Manish Chaudhari) is essentially an underworld figure who sees Anu a powerful business woman, and his enmity arises from her refusal to yield to the illegal demands of his syndicate. The film presents him as the classic villain orchestrating attacks to gain control over her business empire. What is puzzling is, the ending shows Anu deciding to absorb him into her corporate structure by making him Chairman of a sister concern. The logic or illogic could be that, by co-opting him into the legitimate business world, she plans to neutralize his underground threat as a ‘Strategic Corporate Compromise’ rather than a moral choice. Rewarding the villain with a formal Chairmanship is unconvincing, though a novel idea.

Another striking feature of The Ghost is its restraint in the usual commercial elements. There are no traditional song sequences, no notable love scenes between Vikram and Priya, and barely any overt display of affection even within the family fold of Anu and Athithi. This deliberate absence makes the film colder and more clinical in tone, aligning it with international action thrillers rather than the melodramatic Telugu template, perhaps depriving the audience of emotional breathing space.

The Ghost stands as a film that had both the ammunition and the stage to fire into brilliance, but often chose to scatter its shots. Its strengths are undeniable, slick cinematography and stylish action choreography, a systematic attempt to join multiple disjointed links, and a refreshing focus on Athithi’s characterization that kept sentiment alive amidst bloodshed. Yet weaknesses stare back just as strongly. Priya’s relevance remains hazy, the irrational mass killings dilute credibility, and the ending with Pankaj’s absorption into Anu’s corporate empire collapses under its own illogic.

Above all, the film fails to fully convert its powerful opening, that, the boy’s tragic death that shaped Vikram’s psyche, into a thread that binds the entire story. That was a missed opportunity to create a profound emotional arc that could have lifted the film from an action thriller to a psychological drama with real staying power. Had the makers dared to slow down the violence and tie every symbolic moment into the final reckoning, The Ghost could have become not just a stylish entertainer but also a layered cinematic experience. A little more narrative discipline and a little less indulgence in body count, might have made this film far brighter.

And yet, despite all these gaps, I must confess that I liked The Ghost most. Perhaps it is my untold weakness for films that mix thrill, fight, and the frog-leap storytelling style, where the narrative jumps in unexpected arcs. It is this personal indulgence that made me sit through its flaws and still find entertainment, even when the shadows it created sometimes blurred the light it promised. Judged with balance, the producer–director team has shown flashes of brilliance and courage, but it silently exposed cracks in narrative discipline. Their success lies in weaving content with conviction, but their failure comes when style overtakes substance.

The Film Ghost, with the combination of the producers, Suniel Narang, Puskur Ram Mohan Rao, and Sharrath Marar joined by Director Praveen Sattaru, has delivered a varied but significant narrative of its kind, liked or disliked by audience. Success and failure in cinema, especially when a strong producers–director combination is involved, cannot be measured only in box-office numbers. A balanced gauge requires looking at several layers. One looks forward to more films from this combination, preferably correcting these mistakes and turning ambition into cohesive cinema.’