Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya

Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language comedy mystery film directed by Swaroop R. S. J., who co-wrote the film with Naveen Polishetty. The film stars Polishetty as the title character alongside Shruti Sharma in her Telugu debut. It follows a Nellore-based detective whose life runs into danger when he starts investigating the case of a dead body abandoned near a railway track.

The film was released theatrically on 21 June 2019 and received critical acclaim from the critics, where it became a commercial success at the box office. The film won three awards at Zee Cine Awards Telugu. It was remade in Tamil as Agent Kannayiram.

Plot
Sai Srinivas Athreya is an amateur detective in Nellore, who calls himself Agent Sai Srinivas Athreya. He has an agency named FBI (Fatima Bureau of Investigation), and solves minor, petty cases with his assistant Sneha. One day, his friend Sirish informs him of an unidentified body in Venkatachalam. When Athreya goes there, an arrogant CI Gautham Krishna arrests him on suspicion of murder.

In prison that night, Athreya meets a man, Maruthi Rao, who tells him of his daughter Divya, who went missing after going to Ongole and later was found dead, clearly raped and murdered. He says that the corrupt police framed him and gives Athreya 3 phone numbers that his daughter was talking to before her death; Athreya and Sneha investigate and find out the phone numbers belonged to Ajay, Harsha and Vasudha. They find out that both Ajay and Harsha were in Ongole the day Divya was murdered, while Vasudha cannot be traced.

However, Athreya sees a woman who looks like Divya on a highway, but she doesn't understand him when he tries to talk to her and has a different father with her. Athreya tracks Maruthi rao to a Nellore sub-jail and finds out that Maruthi Rao is actually called Gopalam.

Both Ajay and Harsha are brutally murdered and Athreya is framed and arrested. Athreya realizes that Maruthi Rao's information is a trap to frame him in the murder case which is related to the unidentified body found in Venkatachalam.

He gets out on bail due to CCTV footage evidence that he was in Nellore sub-Jail at the time of the murders, but only has five more days to prove his innocence due to the overwhelming evidence against him. It is discovered that Ajay and Harsha wanted the details of Athreya after he saw him being arrested in Venkatachalam. Meanwhile, a father registers a complaint about his missing daughter, Vasudha, who turns out to be dead as well. A frustrated Athreya shows his anguish on the cops, who decide to cancel his bail.

Later, Athreya catches a man nicknamed "Bobby" who has been following Athreya around, however, Bobby reveals himself as an amateur detective, who, like Athreya, runs an FBI (Friends Bureau of Investigation) in Hassan, Karnataka. Swamy was fed with false information that Athreya is the real murderer. Athreya figures out that there is a huge conspiracy, and sees that various bodies have been dumped next to the railway track between Kakinada and Tada railway stations. Athreya discovers that, per Railway rules, when no one claims the dead body in 72 hours, the dead bodies are cremated by the Railway Authorities. He deduces that the bodies are being loaded on a Chennai-to-Delhi goods train. Using this information, Athreya sees that the bodies are loaded at Arambakkam in Tamil Nadu.

With the help of Vamsi, Bobby, and Sneha, he goes to Arambakkam after faking his death to mislead the people following him. In Arambakkam, he catches Gopalam, who confesses everything:

An organization hired Gopalam to take dead bodies from Hindu families on the pretext that they are cremating the bodies in Kashi, a place believed to be holy, in exchange for money. Instead, they dump them on the railway tracks. Athreya realizes that this happened with his own mother and is heartbroken. He deduces that they are stealing the fingerprints of dead bodies to use them to commit crimes, rig elections etc. Athreya and Bobby find that the people behind this wanted to set them up so that they wouldn't find the Bethaballi Amman's (a religious NGO) talismans on the dead bodies that were supposed to be removed before the bodies are disposed.

Meanwhile, Sneha and Vamsi find that Ajay, Harsha, and Vasudha were students who collaborated on a college project about religious crimes in India and collect their photos. Looking at the photos, Athreya realizes Vasudha is not dead and is the mastermind of the entire operation. Being criminology graduates, Ajay and Harsha were investigating the unidentified dead bodies - to get them off their trail, Vasudha had them murdered and was about to send Athreya to jail for their murders. When this failed, she tried to murder Athreya and frame Bobby for it.

After going to Bethaballi Amman NGO's office to find it empty, Athreya deduces that Vasudha went to Rajasthan to set up their new hideout in Karni Mata Temple where the team catches her and her father and hands them over to the Nellore police. Athreya bids his goodbye to Bobby and he along with Sneha, visits the crematorium to pay their respects to Mahalakshmi. Finally, Athreya continues his petty cases and logs heads with local police again which hints towards a sequel.

Cast

 * Naveen Polishetty as Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya a.k.a. "Seenu"
 * Shruti Sharma as Sneha
 * Shredha Rajagopalan as Vasudha
 * Appaji Ambarisha Darbha as Vasudha's father
 * Suhas as Agent Bala Venkata Subramanya Swamy a.k.a. "Bobby"
 * Ram Dutt as Sub-Inspector Vamsi
 * Krishneswara Rao as Gopalam/Maruthi Rao
 * Viswanath Mandalika as CI Gautham Krishna
 * Prashant Yarramilli as Sirish
 * Kranthi Priyam as PWD officer
 * Suri K. Chaplin
 * Lavanya as Ajay's wife
 * Mahija as Harsha's wife
 * Sandeep Raj as Ajay
 * Vinu Varma as Harsha

Production
The lead actor Naveen Polishetty explained that when he was looking for some good scripts, the director Swaroop contacted him on Facebook and told him the film's title and about the protagonist. When he narrated the whole story, Polishetty agreed to do the film if they got to work together on the final version. Swaroop agreed and they met in Hyderabad, where Polishetty's 4 years of experience as a writer helped him and they together worked on the script for eight months.

The soundtrack was composed by Mark K Robin and the cinematography was handled by Sunny Kurapati. The film was produced by the Malli Raava-fame Rahul Yadav Nakka.

Soundtrack
The film's only song is "Sherlock Holmes", composed by Mark K Robin. It has two versions: one sung by Anurag Kulkarni, and another by Harika Narayan.

Release
The film was released theatrically on 21 June 2019.

Critical reception
Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya received critical acclaim from the critics and audience.

Film Companion Karthik Keramulu called it the best comedy thriller of the decade. Times of India critic Neehitha Nyayapati gave it 4 stars out of 5, praising Polishetty's performance and the execution. A reviewer from The Hans India gave the film 4 stars out of 5, praising the performances, music and screenplay while criticising the slow-paced narration in the first half. A Deccan Chronicle critic similarly gave it 4 stars out of 5, calling it a "Telugu Sherlock Holmes" while praising the performances, background score and the cinematography. Krishna Sripada of The News Minute gave it 4 stars out of 5, and calling it a "textbook crime drama", praised the plot and cinematography but criticised some dubbing mismatches, Sharma's "undermined" character in the second half and editing towards the end.

The film also received appreciation from several Telugu film celebrities like director K. Raghavendra Rao and actors Allu Arjun and Varun Tej.

Box office
Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya performed well in India and USA and was declared a super hit for this modest budget of 1 cr INR. The film was given a limited theatrical release and due to strong word of mouth in its full run the film grossed over 20 crores globally.

Home media
The film's satellite and digital rights were sold to Gemini TV and Amazon Prime Video.

Sequel and remakes
Following the film's success, the makers announced the film's extension into a trilogy. The film was remade in Tamil as Agent Kannayiram, and a Malayalam remake is in development.