Every time there’s a hit Telugu film, it’s generally followed by several speculations of a remake in other languages. There were wild speculations that Uppena’s Tamil remake rights were bought by Vijay Sethupathi to launch actor Vijay’s son into films. Though the news was out in 2020, it only proved to be a rumour as a ploy to keep the buzz surrounding the film alive.
Producers adopted the same tactic for Dear Comrade when Karan Johar surprisingly announced a Hindi remake of the film even before the Telugu release. There’s no news about it ever since. Similarly, Dil Raju had thought of uniting with Boney Kapoor for the Hindi remake of F2. That hasn’t materialised either.
Now, the focus has shifted to Allari Naresh’s comeback hit Naandhi, with Dil Raju planning to do a Hindi remake. The film, surrounding a software employee’s fight for justice while being wrongly framed in the murder of a social activist, proved immensely successful in giving Allari Naresh a much-needed makeover, reminding audiences that he’s a lot more than a comedy actor. However, is a Hindi remake workable with the story?
To remind readers, a Hindi film with a similar premise, Jail, starring Saaho actor Neil Nithin Mukesh, had released many years ago. The Madhur Bhandarkar-directorial also starring Mugdha Godse was a well-made film though it didn’t do well at the box office. Several sequences in Naandhi resemble Jail. Moreover, the Hindi film industry has had several absorbing courtroom dramas in recent years – Pink, Jolly LLB series, Section 375. The novelty factor may not work there.
Naandhi is a film that worked a lot because of its performances but the treatment was rather melodramatic and the good parts made many people overlook the several loose ends. It was made on a tight budget and had the right release. Even if the Hindi remake goes ahead as per plan, the writers need to do several changes to the existing script to make it more realistic. It just doesn’t seem the film that will work across multiple languages.