9 hours web series review|9 hours web series|9 hours web series cast and crew:9 Hours, streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, is filmmaker Krish Jagarlamudi’s adaptation of the Telugu novel Thommidhi Gantalu (nine hours), written by Malladi Venkata Krishnamurthy. Set in the mid- 1980s, it narrates the story of prison inmates who are commissioned to rob three banks and have to return within nine hours, in time for their next roll call. Krish, who has written and presented the series, needs to be commended for dipping into Telugu literature time and again for his movies, and now series.
Directed by Niranjan Kaushik and Jacob Verghese, the series has varied and complex characters falling on different sides of the moral compass. There are prisoners who do not think twice about hurting the hostages and those who, given a chance, would opt for a better life. The hostages of different age groups are with differing moralities. The narrative has a lot to unravel, with the backstories of characters turning into a commentary on relationship dynamics, gender sensitivity, greed and power games.
9 hours web series
The story that begins as just another day at the bank swiftly transforms into a hostage drama. A video cassette store becomes the police control room for the mission and in the pre-mobile phones and the high-tech gadget age, walkie-talkies, landlines and public telephone booths come into the picture. As the drama unfolds, we get a closer look at the lives of the characters, some of which hold intrigue.
9 Hours, the Telugu web series which released on Disney + Hotstar on June 2, has well-known director Krish Jagarlamudi as its showrunner and writer and is adapted from the novel ‘Tommidi Gantalu’ by Malladi Venkata Krishna Murthy. The web series, set in 1985, begins with three prisoners breaking out from Central Jail and heading to the Deccan Imperial Bank to carry out a well-planned bank robbery. Yes, think of it as an 1980s desi ‘Money Heist’.
At the outset, this may seem like a straightforward plan but the twist is that the three prisoners need to be back in prison by the evening roll call. The bank is on its usual business day when the three men barge into the bank and take the employees and visitors hostage. The series is divided into nine episodes corresponding to the nine hours between the prisoners’ escape and time to return to their cells and as the story progresses we discover why they are compelled to commit this crime.
9 Hours is adapted from Tommidi Gantalu, penned by Malladi Venkata Krishna Murthy. Written by Krish and directed by Niranjan Kaushik and Jacob Varghese, the web-series takes you through a span of the titular nine hours, weaving a tightly wound narrative that keeps you engaged for the most part.
In 1985, few prisoners escape from prison and rob three branches of the same bank. In one of the banks, a simple heist soon turns complicated with the robbers forced to take the bankers and customers hostage. A short tempered police officer Pratap (Taraka Ratna) happens to be nearby when the situation escalates. What follows is chaos that no one could’ve predicted.
9 Hours boasts of a stellar cast featuring names like Ajay, Vinod Kumar, Madhu Shalini, Ravi Varma, Preethi Asrani, Ankith Koyya, Jwala Koti, Monica Reddy and others. Madhu Shalini plays a reporter called Chitralekha who has been assigned the story. She also happens to be Pratap’s estranged wife. As situations both inside and outside the bank worsen, with the series peeling back the layers episode by episode, you can’t help but feel intrigued.
Ajay, Taraka Ratna, Ravi Varma, Madhu Shalini, Preethi Asrani, Ankith and others are adequate in their roles and so is the music by Shakthi Kanth Karthick and cinematography by Manoj Reddy.
