Lol Salaam - A Contrived Comedy

'LOL Salaam' is streaming on ZEE5. Here is our review of the latest Telugu-language web series.

Story:

Reddy, Varma, John, Naidu and Khan hope to spend a happy two days in a forest near Hyderabad. Their holiday joy goes out the window when Reddy accidentally places his foot on a landmine fixed by the Maoists inhabiting the jungle. His friends now have to move heaven and earth to save him, but a host of quirky situations could spoil their plans.

Analysis:

What is the probability that, when your friend places his foot on a landmine, you will move back at least a few steps out of the fear of death? In 'LOL Salaam', when this most frightening situation ensues, the handful of people around the landmine don't show the expected involuntary action. If the way the scene plays out looks staged, it's because the entire web series is packed with an artificial screenplay.

Writer-director Naani Bandreddi loses his track right after two episodes. Even the positives of the first two episodes are limited to the somewhat slice-of-life conversations between the five friends. If one of them has a job problem, another one has a problem with his parents asking him to get married. A third one has an elopement-gone-wrong problem, while a fourth one has a hyper-reactive father who wants him to learn the Bible by heart from page to page.

The first episode plays out like a typical well-written, well-acted short film. And the second episode ends with a cliffhanger, letting the viewer expect something interesting from the impending crisis (or circus, as some would have it). The following four episodes, however, fail to excite tension even though more than a few lives are at stake.

There is an Art Of Living trainer who is stereotyped. A Christian pastor is stereotyped. If their tracks work, it's only because of the actors (Pavan Kumar and Vasu Inturi, respectively) who have played them. The dialogues are bereft of substance even in the segments where rivalrous Naxal groups are on a rampage. The nature of the comedy remains frozen. The interactions between the lead characters and the radicals they bump into in the middle of the night don't carry any trace of believability.

A lead character crosses paths with his estranged girlfriend and the direction of the story changes. This happens as an accident. How likely are you to bump into your ex-girlfriend at a police station, that too in the middle of a night, when you need her the most? One in a billion chance in real life. It would have made so much sense to just show the lead character making a desperate bid to patch up with his ex over the phone because he badly needs her help.

The last three episodes are comprehensively boring, with no tension building up and only buffoonery being passed for entertainment.

The performances are decent enough. Kivish Kautilya, Srinivas Reddy, Darahas Mathur, Rohit Krishna Varma, Padmini Settam, Gayathri, and Praveena are all newbie actors relatively. Ajay Arasada's background music and Rakesh S Narayanan's cinematography are unremarkable.

Verdict:

'LOL Salaam' flattens the impact of its healthy premise. There are one too many characters and their situations are rare. Yet, the comedy-drama doesn't know what to do with them.