The Ride Movie 2025 Bappamtv Review Details
The Ride Review – Director Ka Vision Ekdum Next Level!
Having seen directors come and go over 18 years, you recognize a confident voice when you hear it. Ritesh Menon’s vision in ‘The Ride’ isn’t just about making a thriller; it’s about redefining tension within four wheels. This is a film where the director’s hand is firm on the wheel, navigating a tricky path with stunning precision. Salaam, Ritesh Menon!
Directorial Choices: Confidence in Constraint
Menon’s boldest choice is embracing the constraint. One car, two main characters, a night-long journey. Instead of feeling stagey, it becomes intensely cinematic. His decision to rely on actor close-ups and ambient sound over bombastic music shows immense trust in his material and cast. The pacing is clinical—a slow-burn start that methodically tightens the screws before the interval bang explodes.
Insight: Menon understands that real fear is a slow leak, not a burst tyre. He lets the anxiety seep into you.
Signature Style: Emerging from the Shadows
While this is a breakout, a signature style is clear: psychological realism over melodrama, environment as a narrative force, and performances stripped to the bone. There’s a documentarian’s eye for detail—the grime on the dashboard, the specific fatigue in a driver’s eyes. It feels less directed and more observed, which makes the eventual plunge into chaos utterly devastating.
Takeaway: This could be the birth of a new voice in neo-noir thrillers, one rooted in Malayalam cinema’s celebrated realism.
Influences & Easter Eggs: A Cinephile’s Ride
You can spot the DNA of classics like ‘Locke’ (single location drama) and Tamil masterpieces like ‘Aaranya Kaandam’ (gritty, unpredictable narrative). There’s also a dash of the Coen brothers’ sense of absurd fate. A subtle easter egg? The radio news snippets playing in the background often foreshadow the film’s themes of chance and accident, a brilliant touch for repeat viewers.
Director’s Journey: Comparing The Ride to Past Work
| Film/Project | Scale & Genre | Evolution Seen in ‘The Ride’ |
|---|---|---|
| Ritesh Menon’s Earlier Shorts | Smaller, character sketches | Mastery over sustained feature-length tension |
| Typical Malayalam Thrillers | Often exterior, plot-heavy | Focus on interiority & psychological depth |
| Industry Standard | Reliance on twists | Trust in atmospheric dread over cheap shocks |
Cast Chemistry Under Direction: Forged in Confinement
Menon’s biggest win is extracting career-best work from Sudhi Koppa and Ann Sheethal. The direction seems to have been about creating a high-trust, high-pressure environment off-camera to mirror the on-screen one. Their chemistry isn’t romantic; it’s a volatile, shifting equation of dependency and suspicion. You believe every second of their shared journey because the director made the space real for them.
Insight: Great direction is about curation and environment. Menon curated perfect cast and then locked them into the film’s reality.
Future Potential: What’s Next for this Vision?
| Potential Path | Opportunity | Risk to Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Bigger Budget Thrillers | Apply this tense style to a heist or conspiracy plot | Losing the intimate character focus |
| Anthology Series | Excel in episodic, tense storytelling (e.g., a Netflix series) | Formulaic repetition of the ‘journey’ trope |
| Producer for New Voices | Nurture similar gritty, realistic thrillers in the industry | Spreading his own vision too thin |
FAQs About The Director’s Craft
Question → Is this Ritesh Menon’s debut film?
Answer → While he has directed shorts, ‘The Ride’ is being treated as his major feature-film directorial debut, and what a stunning announcement it is!
Question → Does the film feel slow because of the single location?
Answer → Absolutely not. The direction uses the limitation to create claustrophobia and relentless focus. The pace is taut and nerve-wracking.
Question → Will this style work for a mass audience?
Answer → It’s working already! It’s massy in its emotion and relatable tension, not in slow-motion heroism. It connects dil se.
Ratings are purely my take after multiple watches — aapka experience alag ho sakta hai!
