The reason why heist films are universally loved is we, the audience, are secretly begging to be tricked. We want to be conned by a slick crew, buy their false trails only to go awestruck with a twist we never saw coming. Chaurya Paatam by debutant Nikhil Gollamari, is a rural heist comedy wary of its purpose and genre. The film begins on a promising note, set for a breezy con job delivered through zany characters and confident filmmaking. But somewhere along the way, the film stops scheming and starts sulking. The con plateaus, the comedy dries up, and what starts as a raucous ride quietly settles into a lecture.

Vedanth Ram (played by Indhra Ram) is an aspiring filmmaker whose silver-screen dreams are a stretch too far. After a mishap on his film set, he devises a daring scheme — to rob a bank and self-fund his movie. It is a plan with “cinematic gold” written all over it. He assembles a ragtag crew: a prop explosion expert, an alcoholic daily wage worker, and a comical cinematographer sidekick. They zero in on Dhanapali, the richest village in India in the film’s milieu, and disguise themselves as documentary filmmakers with an ulterior motive. True to the genre’s essentials, Dhanapali has its share of mystery, and soon, the filmmakers are not the only ones with something to hide.

Director: Nikhil Gollamari

Cast: Indhra Ram, Payal Radhakrishna, Rajeev Kanakala, Saleem Pheku