Citylights movie story: Shiva (Vinay Rajkumar) a hardworking farmer, is forced to move to Bengaluru to make ends meet, after the death of his uncle. He lands in Majestic, where his friend runs a thriving operation of providing candidates for various clinical trials. While there, Shiva has a run in with a gang trafficking women, whose latest victim is Monisha (Monisha Vijay Kumar). How she got caught by this gang and what happens after Shiva rescues her forms the crux of the narrative.
Citylights movie review: In actor-turned-director Duniya Vijay’s third outing as filmmaker, Citylights, he chooses to stay behind the camera. Instead, he puts Vinay Rajkumar in the lead, along with his daughter Monisha, who makes her onscreen debut. This may not have been the smartest move for Vijay, who’d headlined his earlier two directorials, Salaga and Bheema, both of which worked well for his audience. Citylights is a film in the Duniya Vijay template – it is set in the seedy underbelly of Bengaluru, has a raw tone, with lot of violence in the mix. It is also a film in which dialogue writer Maasthi was, yet again, let loose to go all out and appease their audience. The only classy element in the mix is Charanraj’s score, but even that is getting monotonous in the Vijay Kumar Movie Universe.
The problem, this time around, is that somewhere along the way, Vijay forgot the need for a coherent script and screenplay. What he presents is a selection of scenes stitched together that are random at best and do not make sense. There’s also a forced comedy track involving cops that is so cringey, they even had to recycle the I Love You Kane track from Bheema. After tackling Bengaluru’s underworld and drug mafia in his earlier films, this time, Vijay put the spotlight on the plight of the women of the night and the marginalised transgender community. This effort, though, did not have the required punch.
The ‘Maasthi special’ dialogues were tailor-made for Vijay, but here, they’ve been distributed to anyone who gets more than two seconds screen time, including newbie actors and the end result is crass, to say the least. Some supporting actors get far more screen time than Vinay, which does not bode well either. Citylights is a misstep for Vinay, who has been trying out raw and rugged characters in his recent filmography, none of which have clicked so far. Here, he is let down by the writing, or rather, the lack of it. Monisha also gets the raw end of the stick and lands an underwhelming debut. Compared to her sister Monica’s role in Landlord, this one had far less impact.
Citylights movie verdict: Duniya Vijay’s third directorial is his weakest thus far. His films are, no doubt, meant for a specific set of audience, and they may still revel in what’s unleashed on screen in City Lights.
