''Highway'' is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language mystery crime thriller film written and directed by

K. V. Guhan K. V. Guhan is an Indian cinematographer from Chennai, India. Guhan is the younger brother of the Tamil film director, Saran. He collaborated with director Radha Mohan, for two notable films in Tamil cinema, '' Mozhi'' (2007) and '' Payanam' ...

and, produced by Venkat Talari through Sree Iswarya Lakshmi Movies and Northstar Entertainment. The film features Anand Deverakonda, Manasa Radhakrishnan (in her

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

debut) and Abhishek Banerjee (in his

debut) in primary roles. ''Highway'' was premiered on Aha on 19 August 2022.

Plot

Cast

* Anand Deverakonda as Vishnu * Manasa Radhakrishnan as Tulasi * Abhishek Banerjee as D * Saiyami Kher as Asha Bharath *

John Vijay John Vijay (born 20 November 1976) is an Indian actor who plays supporting roles in Tamil films. He has also worked in a few Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada films. Career John Vijay did his M.Sc. in Visual Communication from Loyola College ...

Reshma Pasupuleti Reshma Pasupuleti (born 23 July 1983) is an Indian actress who primarily appears in Tamil language films and TV series. She started her career as an anchor and news reporter for a Telugu TV channel. She began her TV career in Tamil through Vams ...

* Satya as Samudram

Production

After watching Abhishek Banerjee's performance in the Hindi web series ''

Paatal Lok ''Paatal Lok'' () is an Indian Hindi-language crime thriller web television series on Amazon Prime Video, created by Sudip Sharma, who wrote the script along with Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra, and directed by Avinash Arun and P ...

'', Guhan cast him for the role of a

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

. The film's launch event with a '' puja'' ceremony was held in May 2021. It was extensively shot on the highways near

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

Araku Valley Araku Valley is a hill station in Alluri Sitharama Raju district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, lying 111 km west of Visakhapatnam city. This place is often referred to as ''Ooty of Andhra''. It is a valley in the Eastern Ghats inh ...

and

Chikmagalur Chikmagalur, known officially as Chikkamagaluru, is a city and the headquarters of Chikmagalur district in the Indian state of Karnataka. Located on the foothills of the Mullayanagiri peak of the Western Ghats, the city attracts tourists fro ...

in approximately forty days. Filming was wrapped up in October 2021.

Soundtrack

The

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

and

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' ...

of the film is composed by Simon K. King. The music rights were acquired by

Aditya Music Aditya Music India Private Limited is a music company in India, which owns the label Aditya Music. It produces music for the Telugu cinema industry and is headquartered at Hyderabad, Telangana. Overview The company was founded by Umesh Gup ...

Release and reception

''Highway'' was premiered on Aha on 19 August 2022. Neeshita Nyayapati of ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

'' gave a rating of 2 out of 5 and wrote that "''Highway'' is passable fare at best, but given the kind of talent involved in the project, you can’t help but wonder if the story had the potential to be fleshed out better". Balakrishna Ganeshan of ''

The News Minute ''The News Minute'' is an Indian digital news platform based in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded by Dhanya Rajendran, Chitra Subramaniam and Vignesh Vellore in 2014. Apart from Karnataka, it also has bureaus in the states of Telangana, And ...

'' also gave same rating and wrote that "''Highway'' sticks true to the crime thriller genre without meandering into unnecessary details or scenes". '' Pinkvilla'' too rated the film 2 out of 5 and stated "Highway is barely clued into the emerging plot devices in the Indian OTT space, especially those concerning crime thrillers, which have long ceased to present obvious formats". Writing for ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'', Sangeetha Devi Dundoo opined that the film "unfolds on familiar lines and delivers thrills from time to time. However, it falls short in the final portions that seem stretched and dilute the potential for a nail-biting finish". ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new onl ...

'''s Roktim Rajpal stated: "Highway had the potential to be a dark and disturbing thriller but it ends up being a damp squib".

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=tt16673138, title=Highway
''Highway''
on Aha 2022 films Indian crime thriller films 2022 crime thriller films 2020s Telugu-language films Films set in Visakhapatnam Films set in Andhra Pradesh Films set in Bangalore Films set in Hyderabad, India Films set in Karnataka 2020s mystery thriller films Indian mystery thriller films Films shot in Hyderabad, India Films shot in Andhra Pradesh Films shot in Karnataka Aha (streaming service) original films