Mathu Vadalara 2

Mathu Vadalara 2
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ritesh Rana
Written by	Ritesh Rana
Produced by	Chiranjeevi (Cherry) Pedamallu Hemalatha Pedamallu
Starring	Sri Simha Koduri Satya Faria Abdullah Sunil Vennela Kishore
Cinematography	Suresh Sarangam
Edited by	Karthika Srinivas
Music by	Kaala Bhairava
Production companies	Clap Entertainment Mythri Movie Makers
Release date	13 September 2024 (2024-09-13)
Running time	139 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu
Budget	₹10 crore
Box office	est.₹30 crore

Mathu Vadalara 2 (transl. Leave the intoxication) is a 2024 Indian Telugu-language crime comedy film directed by Ritesh Rana. It serves as a sequel to Mathu Vadalara (2019). The film features Sri Simha Koduri, Satya, and Vennela Kishore reprising their roles from the first installment, with Faria Abdullah and Sunil joining the cast.

The film is produced by Clap Entertainment and Mythri Movie Makers, with music composed by Kaala Bhairava. Mathu Vadalara 2 was released on 13 September 2024.

Plot

Tejaswi Thota (Ajay), the main villain of this movie, has voyeurism since childhood. Since young age, he starts blackmailing women by shooting their intimate videos, and extorting money from them, from which he earns some money. He is later caught by police but narrowly escapes. After that, he disappears. Authorities believe he has changed his name and is still doing the same business somewhere else.

The police force has set up a special elite team called High Emergency Team, aka H.E. Team, to handle urgent cases, such as kidnapping and murder. Babu Mohan (Sri Simha Koduri ) and Yesudas, aka Yesu, (Satya), two jobless young men, join H.E. Team. They are actually not qualified but they managed to join by bribing the training coach. They later both show excellent performance in H.E. Team, which earned them fame and adoration from colleagues. But unknown to their colleagues, they are not very honest. They steal a portion of ransom money after catching every kidnapper, claiming that portion of money was lost during fight with the kidnapper.

On Yesu's birthday, they go to Karma Hub & Lounge, a luxurious club, to celebrate, where they encounter a popular actor, "Youth Star" Yuva (Vennela Kishore). Later, Babu and Yesu catch two drug dealers red-handed at the restroom, and they create a scene. Club owner Akash comes out to handle the situation, whom Babu and Yesu recognize as Tejaswi Thota. They accuse Akash is Tejaswi Thota and involved in the drug dealing since his club is not open to the public but member-only. But due to lack of evidence, they can do nothing but arrest the two drug dealers.

The next day, they are assigned a case from Damini, the district magistrate from a very rich family. She tells them that her daughter, Riya, has been kidnapped, and that the kidnapper had sent her a video, asking a ransom of ₹2 crores; Babu and Yesu decide to handle this case unofficially so that they can steal all the ransom money. But they don't have enough luck this time: the kidnapper escapes with the ransom money and they can't find the hostage Riya. Damini becomes furious and threatens to report them to their superiors if they don't bring back Riya in one day.

Yesu and Babu then get an anonymous call stating that Riya is kidnapped and demanding another ₹10 lakhs. They reach the location, Lakeview Lodge, and go to the room. But they see Aakash, and threaten him with a revolver, as they believe he kidnapped Riya again. Aakash is shot dead when Yesu is pointing his gun at him, but by someone else, not Yesu. They search the scene but cannot find the gunman. The H.E. Team soon arrives at the scene. Babu and Yesu successfully fool the team and contaminate the crime scene, to avoid the suspicion from falling on them.

The next day, they reach their office just to find the real Damini, who is a completely different person from the Damini they previously saw, filing a missing case on Riya. According to a photo shown by Damini, the real Riya is also not the same girl the fake Damini showed whom they tried to rescue. Just then, H.E. Team receives an anonymous video through email, which shows Babu and Yesu killing Aakash in Lakeview Lodge. They run to their car to escape but are stunned to see real Riya's corpse in their car's back seat. Somehow, the duo manages to escape by deserting the car in a slum. After that Babu and Yesu go to the fake Damini's house and get to know that the house was a shooting place for serials and films and was previously rented by a fightmaster Ranjith. They go to him and he turns out to be the previous fake kidnapper, who confesses that he was contracted by Aakash to shoot the kidnap scene.

Nidhi is the only member of the H.E. team who believes Babu and Yesu are being framed, so she secretly meets with them to help solve the case. They revisit ,Lakeview Lodge, the hotel where Akash was killed and realize that they had previously entered the wrong room. The room the kidnapper instructed them to enter was a different one. When they check the correct room, they find some food left-overs from Yesu's birthday dinner at Karma Hub & Lounge, hinting that someone has deliberately collected their things and brought here, in order to frame them for something. They also find a bracelet belonging to Yuva. They later learn that several hidden cameras were installed in the hotel. They obtain the memory card containing footage from Akash's room, hoping to find some leads.

They arrest Yuva, who admits that he accidentally killed Riya and put her dead body on the backseat of Babu and Yesu's car. He also reveals Akash's crimes: yes, Akash is indeed Tejaswi Thota. He runs Karma Hub & Lounge to provide a place for rich men to prey on young girls. He provides drugs to them to put in the girls' drinks. They would later rape those drugged girls. If the girl becomes suspicious the next morning, he just claims that she drank too much and passed out. He also installed spy cameras in his club, so that if any girl tires to take legal action, he would threaten her with the sex video. After Yuva accidentally killed Riya, Akash planned the entire fake kidnapping to lure Babu and Yesu to the hotel and frame them for Riya’s murder. However, the plan failed when they entered the wrong room. Yuva claims he has no knowledge of Akash’s murder.

Meanwhile, Yesu realizes that a bullet is missing from his gun. The only time his gun was out of his sight was in the H.E. team office. He suspects that another H.E. agent is involved. This agent stole a bullet from Yesu’s gun and used it to shoot Akash, ensuring that the forensic report would confirm Yesu as the killer. Later, they successfully access the memory card and see that the real killer is Saxena (Raja Chembolu), their colleague.

Nidhi presents the video of Saxena shooting Akash to Deepa (Rohini), the H.E. team chief, who orders Saxena’s arrest. During the attempt to arrest Saxena, a gunfight breaks out, and Deepa shoots Saxena dead. With all the evidence, Babu and Yesu are cleared of suspicion, but they struggle to understand Saxena's motive. At this point, Babu asserts that Saxena was working for someone else and that the person behind it all is none other than Deepa. He presents a voice recording from Saxena's phone, which clearly reveals that Deepa ordered Saxena to kill Akash and frame Babu and Yesu.

Before her arrest, Deepa reveals her motive: She knew already that Akash is Tejaswi Thota. Akash/Tejaswi Thota killer her husband, who was a police officer trying to arrest him at that time. Her daughter was also one of Akash’s sextortion victims. Due to a lack of evidence and Akash’s threats to release her daughter’s sex video, she couldn’t take action against him. Instead, she chose to have him killed.

Cast

• Sri Simha Koduri as Babu Mohan "Babu"
• Satya as Yesudasu "Yesu"
• Faria Abdullah as Nidhi
• Vennela Kishore as "Youth Star" Yuva/Ravi Teja
• Sunil as Michael
• Rohini as Deepa, Head of the High Emergency Team (H.E. Team)
• Ajay as Aakash/Tejaswi Thota. During the beginning scenes of the movie, this character is retconned to exist within the continuity of the films Kushi and Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, both of which had Ajay play a brief role as a blackmailer. This sets up the possibility of the 3 films existing in a shared universe
• Raja Chembolu as Saxena
• Jhansi as the fake Dhamini
• Srinivasa Reddy
• Gundu Sudarshan
• Satya Krishnan as the real Dhamini
• Isha Yadav as Riya
• Naresh Agastya as Abhi (Cameo)

Production

Following the success of Mathu Vadalara in 2019, a sequel was highly anticipated. Director Ritesh Rana, known for his unique comedic style and heavy use of meme culture, returned to helm the sequel. The production of the film was handled by Clap Entertainment in collaboration with Mythri Movie Makers, with Chiranjeevi 'Cherry' Pedamallu and Hemalatha Pedamallu as producers.

Music

Kaala Bhairava, who composed the music for the first film, returned to score the soundtrack for Mathu Vadalara 2.

Release

Mathu Vadalara 2 was released in theaters on 13 September 2024. The film will premiere on Netflix on 11 October 2024.

Reception

Paul Nicodemus of The Times of India rated the film three out of five stars and wrote that "The film's brisk pace in the first half keeps viewers hooked, with a solid interval twist raising the stakes. However, the second half shifts gears into more of a crime thriller, losing some of the energy from the earlier segments." Avad Mohammad of OTTplay gave it three out of five stars and wrote that "Mathu Vadalara 2 is a decent comedy caper that has situational comedy at its best. While the narrative gets jaded a bit in the latter part, Satya's hilarious performance makes the film a watchable fare for its clean entertainment."

Balakrishna Ganeshan of The News Minute gave it two-and-a-half out of five stars and wrote, "While Mathu Vadalara 2's absurd setting works, better writing would have made this film memorable, like its predecessor." Sashidhar Adivi of Times Now gave it two-and-a-half out of five stars and opined that "Mathu Vadalara 2 is a mixed bag. The first half is well-written and well-performed. The second half, however, should have been pacier and neater. All in all, it’s s decent crime thriller."

Aditya Devulapally of Cinema Express wrote that "The murder mystery is the weakest aspect of the film. The revelations are neither shocking, nor does it provide a deeper sense of purpose. However, the actors' comedic quality more than makes up for the lack of clever crime writing." Nirupama Kodukula of Telangana Today wrote that "Overall, this movie moves along nicely, and it closes with a scene that suggests what comes next. The comedy woven throughout the crime tale elevates the film as a whole, despite its foundation in crime. For all those who enjoy comedy films and enjoyment, this is a must-watch."

Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu wrote, "Mathu Vadalara 2 is Satya's show all the way, with able support coming in from Simha Koduri, Faria Abdullah, Vennela Kishore, Ajay, Sunil and Raja Chembolu."

External links

• Mathu Vadalara 2 at IMDb