11th Hour: Tamannaah's OTT Debut Not Impressive Enough!
Actress Tamannaah Bhatia has made her digital debut in the Telugu web-series world with the just-released Aha original series, 11th Hour. The trailer hinted that 11th Hour will be a nail-biting crime thriller set in the corporate world. Touted to be the first big-budget Telugu web series, 11th Hour, however, fails at all levels to deliver on these promises.
Tamannaah plays Aratrika Reddy, who is divorced with a 6-year-old son. While putting her son to bed, she narrates the story of Red Riding Hood to him. The story is quite significant because Aratrika is the proverbial Red Riding Hood who is surrounded by wolves in the garb of men.
Tamannaah’s first enemy is her father who believes his son is the only successor for his company. As things get tough, he makes Aratrika the CEO of his company. However, due to political conspiracy at the national level, the company chooses for liquidation. Aratrika and the key stakeholders have to pay Rs 9,000 plus crore to the Imperial Bank by the next morning to save their company.
Left alone in a man's world, she has no choice but to rage a battle. This is where our confusion begins and the plot loses its hold. With her dreams and the company’s future at stake, will Aratrika manage to pull off a miracle or does she have a master plan in her mind? Watch the full series on Aha to find out what happened.
The only saving grace is that there are only eight episodes with a duration kept under 30 minutes each. All the thrills fizzle out slowly, as the back and forth narrative oscillates between past and present. Even the climax where such a massive conflict comes to a dramatic end isn’t too convincing and appears simplistic.
It appears the makers were in a hurry to shoot the sequences and put the series out as they didn’t concentrate on minute things like lip-sync. There are scenes where Tamannaah’s dialogue and her lip movement didn’t match.
In terms of production values, 11th Hour is undoubtedly the best series in the Telugu digital world to date. Even though a major portion of the story unfolds in a star hotel, the rich visuals, aided by some splendid camera work and production design make it look like a lavishly made series.