Gowtham (Kalyan Ram), an investigative journalist, gets a dream when he stays in room no 118 in a resort. In his dream, he sees a girl getting beaten and a car being thrown into lake.
After waking up, he comes to a conclusion that he got similar dream earlier too when he stayed in the same room in previous months. He starts investigating the case to find out who the girl is.
Though his wedding is fixed with Megha (Shalini Pandey), he is keener on finding about this girl who turns out to be Aadhya (Nivedha).
Who is Aadhya What has happened to her.
Kalyan Ram has been trying to do something new from long time but success is favouring him on rare occasions.
118 is his latest attempt to try his hand in the genre of investigative thriller that is directed by cinematographer K V Guhan.
The concept is fairly interesting. Hero getting dreams on full moon night and seeing the vision of a girl intrigues us in the beginning.
His investigative mission to trace her also holds our interest. The first half is racy enough to hook us to the screen and nothing new is presented.
However, the films so called main twist or core plot is too formulaic. Films dealing pharma scams or medical scams and a character landing in trouble due to this has become a standard template for many thrillers.
Despite racy screenplay and the directors attempt to focus sole on the story with no deviation from the main plot, the big twist doesnt excite us.
Nivetha Thomass flashback episode is predictable. But her performance and the lean runtime are the major points of the movie.
Director K V Guhan, who has lent cinematography to many hit movies like Dookudu, Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu and Jalsa has chosen to introduce a new concept Lucid Dreaming (one can go back to the past event for few minutes in lucid dream) but that has not been fully capitalized. Nevertheless, it brings some novelty to this otherwise simple thriller.
But the romantic track between Kalyan Ram and Shalini Pandey is almost non existent. This is negative aspect of the movie. Shalini Pandey and Kalyan Rams mother roles are just like props in the scene.
Also Kalyan Ram should not have been presented as action star. He doesnt look like a journalist at all.
All in all, 118 is a neat thriller with some early decent sequences. Though it doesnt present anything new, it doesnt bore us either, it holds interest with racy narrative.
