Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
A young woman is kidnapped by organ racketeers and finds her soul entering the body of her gigantic teddy bear. She teams up with a pilot to save her human self, and in an incredible twist of fate, the pilot is also the same guy she has a massive crush on.
Who would’ve thought that someone would make a wacky action-comedy-thriller about a teddy bear fighting an international ring of goons with a pilot? But there are crazier movies in the world and the 2023 Telugu comedy “Buddy” isn’t even wholly original, it’s a remake of the 2021 Tamil action-thriller “Teddy”. Besides, Seth MacFarlane gave viewers a buddy-comedy headlined by a talking teddy bear in the 2012 movie “Ted”, which got a sequel in 2015 and whole new series in 2024.
Directed by Sam Anton, who’s co-written the script with Sai Hemanth, “Buddy” stars Gayatri Bhardwaj as the woman trapped in a teddy bear’s body, while Allu Sirish plays hero pilot Aditya Raj. Unfortunately, the creators fail to maximize Buddy’s comedic potential thanks to a hairbrained plot muddled with needless romance, drama, heroism and stale jokes. I don’t even understand why it’s called “Buddy”, because it’s about a woman in a teddy bear’s body trying to fight crime with the guy she loves, there’s no buddy-ship going on.
Ajmal Ameer plays antagonist Arjun Kumar Varma, a genius doctor who leads the organ racket in Hong Kong and gets an over-exaggerated entry scene – while performing a critical surgery, the doctor decides to take a coffee break to the horror of his fellow doctors but shrugs it off saying the patient has plenty of time and a coffee won’t kill her. And in the most random casting choice, Bollywood actor Mukesh Rishi plays Aditya’s fun uncle, and it’s far too evident that someone else had dubbed for him. Why not simply get a Telugu actor to play his role?
Anyway, “Buddy” is a weird, boring action-comedy, with far too many songs and lazy sequences in its prolonged 2 hour 17 minute runtime. The climax is completely ridiculous, with a mid-air fight that can compete with the 2021 Bollywood movie “Flight” for being brainless. But just like “Flight”, the special effects are actually pretty decent in “Buddy”, however, that doesn’t redeem it in any way. Watch it only if you’re a big fan of Allu Sirish, who surprisingly doesn’t have as much screen time as the teddy bear.
“Buddy” is on Netflix.
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