Pizza: A soggy crust with bland Toppings
Pizza is a remake of 2012 Tamil hit of the same name. UTV as the presenter with Sidharth Roy Kapur & Bijoy Nambiar as the producers, the expectations from such a movie is high. A team of Debutants from the director Akshay Akkineni to lead actors Akshay Oberoi and Parvathy Omnakuttan ,does the movie deliver…. Pizza tells us the story of a young couple Kunal (Debutant Akshay Oberoi) and Nikita (Debutant Parvathy Omnakuttan). Akshay a pizza delivery boy and Nikita a struggling Horror story writer, things change for them when Akshay goes to deliver pizza one night in a bungalow and gets trapped and weird things starts happening in the house. The rest of the story deals with how Kunal overcomes the odds. Story by Abhay Subbaraj and Akshay Akkineni and the screenplay again by Akshay himself, things should have been under control for Akshay as a debutant, but it does not. With a crisp beginning the movie slowly becomes soggy and completely nosedives in the second half. The first half gives you enough punch and keeps you at the edge of the seat with its unexpected thrills and the 3D format enhances the experience and you expect a high octane second half, but alas it is nowhere near to anything which is high, a weird twist just kills the essence of the movie and falls flat. It almost felt as if the first half and the second half was two different movies. Rather as a viewer you feel cheated at the end. Performance wise the movie lacks the histrionics punch, both Akshay Oberoi and Parvathy Omnakuttan does not look convincing. Akshay though is good in certain sequences but looks perpetually lost. Parvathy on the other hand just does not impress and there is no chemistry between the lead pair. On the other hand Rajesh Sharma as the Pizza shop owner, D Santosh as the chef and Hussain Dalal as the steward impress with their earnest and sincere portrayal. Rest of the cast like Deepanita Sharma and Arunoday Singh are wasted. Akshay Akkineni as a debutant director on one hand shows a spark but on the other hand his direction looks extremely amateurish especially how he portrayed the twist. Cinematography by Jay Krishna Gumadi especially in the first half impresses. Pizza had the toppings to make a good horror cum thriller but weak screenplay base makes it soggy and tasteless.I will go with 2 stars….
Movie Rating: (2 / 5)