Teddy review: A promising film ruined by poor execution

Shakti Soundar Rajan is an exciting filmmaker because he tries his hands at various genres and concepts. He introduced Tamil audiences to zombies in Miruthan (2016) and space exploration in Tik Tik Tik (2018). He has now portrayed an out-of-body experience in his latest release, Teddy, which has landed directly on Disney+ Hotstar. Unlike most filmmakers, Shakti Soundar Rajan is smart when it comes to dealing with high concepts as he takes the B-movie approach to tell these stories. The result is mostly silly but entertaining fare, given the fact that most filmmakers don’t take this route. 

Sayyeshaa plays Sri Vidya, a young college student who has a rare blood type. While helping out a motorist in the immediate aftermath of an accident, she suffers an injury and is admitted to a hospital where she becomes the victim of a gang that is involved in an organ racket. After Sri slips into a coma, her soul gets transferred into a giant teddy bear who seeks the help of Shakti (Arya), a loner with the intellect of Albert Einstein to save others from the gang, which operates out of Azerbaijan. Shakti must reunite Teddy with her body and put an end to the mastermind behind the gang. 

As a concept, Teddy sounds quite exciting. Throw in some decent action sequences and this could’ve been a solid commercial action flick. Unfortunately, Teddy doesn’t cash in on its promising plot and is hindered by the silly execution. The initial scenes between Teddy and Shakti are fun and will appeal to kids if released in theatres. But apart from them, nothing much happens in the film.  When the story shifts to Azerbaijan, it gets sillier than one can imagine. Making a B-movie based on such a concept is fine but when you take audiences for granted, it works against the film.

Arya manages to maintain a decent screen presence. It’s the kind of performance we’ve rarely seen from him in a long time. If you take out the actor, however, there isn’t a single other performance worth discussing.

Filmmaker Magizh Thirumeni, as the antagonist, is a joke from the minute he appears on the screen. Going by the promos, he comes across as a villain with a big network. In the film, however, he gets just 3-4 scenes and hardly makes any impact.    

Teddy is being streamed on Disney+ Hotstar