Hindi web series are being made with production values that are comparable to Bollywood movies with better stories and drama. Telugu filmmakers haven’t been able to deliver rich content for OTT platforms with whatever they have made in the past. Loser backed by Annapurna Studios is undoubtedly the best Telugu web series yet. It has a good script, able star cast, decent production values, pace and drama to hold your attention for ten episodes.
Directed by Abhilash Reddy, the ten-episode series is an anthology of three stories that are set in three time frames. Loser tells us about the spite of sportspersons from economically poor backgrounds in India. A talented but aggressive cricketer (Sashank), a muslim badminton player (Annie, Kalpika) who gets no support from her orthodox father (Sayaji) and a very talented air rifle shooter (Priyadarshi), who cannot afford to buy an expensive rifle are the principal characters of Loser.
The story seamlessly switches between the 80’s, the 90’s and the 2000’s narrating the stories of these three characters that are also interlinked. Loser is not entirely fresh in terms of writing as Tollywood has made a fair share of sports dramas and Loser uses all possible genre tropes to establish an emotional connect with its viewers. We had seen similar plot and characters in the recently released sports dramas Jersey and Dear Comrade.
Loser is not as emotionally moving as Jersey in terms of drama, but it definitely addresses the ‘sexual harassment’ issue that sportswomen face better than Dear Comrade. Among its three stories, Priyadarshi’s and Annie’s stories are more fleshed out and rounded while Shashank’s failure story lacked depth. His part is okay at the beginning, but becomes ‘skippable’ after few episodes. Thankfully, this track has limited screen space compared to other stories as the drama thickens.
It takes a couple of episodes for us to feel the emotion and travel with the characters. Last five episodes are high on drama and are well-paced too. The characters behave and talk like real people and doesn’t try to be a hero at any point. Priyadarshi’s reaction to his girlfriend’s biggest problem is as realistic as a movie scene can be.
However, the director fails to show the skills of Priyadarshi’s ‘shooter’ character and we hardly see him train for the Olympics. All he does is roam around to collect money for his rifle and deal with the problems created by his brash brother. Loser is largely PG 13 stuff, but there is that unnecessary use of cuss words and that domestic sexual violence Kalpika faces at home could have been done away with.
Technically, Loser is well-made with impressive visuals, soothing music and credible production design. On the performance front, Priyadarshi is very good as Suri. This is on par with his show in Mallesham. Shashank’s performance is good, but his character is not properly etched. Annie and Kalpika does justice to Ruby’s character. Sayaji Shinde is good. Pavani Gangireddy also shines.
Loser is definitely not among the best options available online at the moment, but it is surely a step forward for Telugu web series that lacked vision and execution when it comes to making realistic dramas. Despite a few shortcomings, Loser is worth streaming.
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