Taxiwaala

Taxiwaala is a 2018 Indian Telugu-language supernatural comedy thriller film directed by Rahul Sankrityan. Produced by UV Creations and GA2 Pictures, the film stars Vijay Deverakonda, Priyanka Jawalkar, and Malavika Nair. The music was composed by Jakes Bejoy with cinematography by Sujith Sarang and editing by Sreejith Sarang. The film released on 17 November 2018 to positive reviews and became a box office success.

The car used in the film was a modified Hindustan Contessa.

Plot
At a hospital, a woman, her husband, and her brother-in-law are devastated after the woman gives birth to a stillborn baby boy, while another young woman mourns the death of her mother.

The film cuts to a year later. A taxi driver plans to get rid of his car. One rainy night, his wife witnesses a supernatural presence in it. Shiva (the woman's brother-in-law) comes to Hyderabad to live with his friend Babai and find a job. After going through several jobs, he is dissatisfied and decides to become a taxi driver. He goes to his village to get money from his brother but instead gets it from his sister-in-law, who readily gives away her mangalsutra to him. A grateful Shiva agrees to help pay the costs for his sister-in-law to get admitted into a better hospital for the birth of her second child. Shiva, Babai and their friend Hollywood search for a car in their budget but fail. One morning, Shiva gets a call from an unknown person who is prepared to sell him a car. Shiva happily accepts while Babai is a little hesitant.

Shiva starts to work for the Ola Cab Service. On his first ride, he falls in love with a medical resident named Anusha after safely giving her a ride from a night out. Overtime, he starts to experience paranormal incidents in the car, notably a drunk passenger being scared. He tries to contact the car's previous owner but learns that he has moved away. A fake fakir comes and fools Shiva, Babai, and Hollywood to steal the car but is almost killed inside it.

The next morning, Shiva and his friends see the car in their garage. Shiva has to arrange money for his sister-in-law's upcoming delivery, so he decides to drive the car again. After being saved from an accident by the car itself, Shiva comes to befriend it. One night after dropping Anusha at her residence, Shiva is asked by a doctor to drop him somewhere. Suddenly, the car takes control and ultimately kills the doctor by throwing him onto some train tracks to be run over, much to Shiva's horror.

Shiva decides to rob the previous car owner's house to get his money back. He, Babai, and Hollywood break into the house and find a man imprisoned in the store room. They admit the man into a hospital, where Anusha treats him. After waking up, he reveals the truth about the car.

The man is a psychology and parapsychology professor. Among his subjects is astral projection, through which a person can separate their soul from their body before death and can also meet the dead. One of his students, Sisira Bharadwaj (the young woman from the prologue), lived with her stepfather Raghuram and wealthy, asthmatic mother. The night of her birthday, she had a fight with her mother when Raghuram tried to replace Sisira's old car, which was a gift from her late father. Later that night, Sisira's mother suddenly began suffocating and could not find her inhaler. She knocked on her daughter's door but was ignored. Sisira's mother died when Sisira found her, leaving the latter in grief and depression.

Sisira begged her professor to perform an astral projection ritual on her so she could see her mother one last time. The process was successful, and Sisira's spirit ventured into the astral world. She realized that her mother was actually murdered by Raghuram so he could usurp her company, and the doctor, who was Raghuram's friend, poisoned her mother and stole her inhaler. Just then, Raghuram arrived and interrupted the ritual. He and the doctor decided to stage Sisira's death as a suicide and captured the professor to kill him later. The two were transported in Sisira's old car, which her soul bonded to after being separated from her body. Sisira's will had her body donated to science and was kept in a hospital.

In the present, the professor reveals that Sisira can be brought back to life if they retrieve her body. Moved by her story, Shiva agrees to help. He and his friends break into the hospital and manage to steal Sisira's body with the help of the fakir-turned-security guard who had tried to steal their car earlier. However, Raghuram plans to destroy Sisira's body and comes to the hospital. He is almost killed by her spirit but barely saves himself. Shiva beats Raghuram and takes him and Sisira's body to the professor's lab where the car is. Raghuram wakes up and tries to kill Shiva but the car stops him and he's burned to death. Unfortunately, Sisira's body is also destroyed in the fire despite Shiva's efforts.

Later, Shiva learns from Anusha that his sister-in-law gave birth to a girl who was also stillborn due to a chromosome abnormality. At the hospital, Anusha sadly reveals that his sister-in-law will never be able to have a child. Everyone goes to the garage and console each other. In the car, Sisira's soul enters the baby girl's body and starts crying, giving both herself and the couple a second chance. Shiva, his family, his friends, the professor, and Anusha come together and cuddle the baby.

Cast

 * Vijay Devarakonda as Shiva
 * Priyanka Jawalkar as Anusha alias Anu
 * Malavika Nair as Sisira Bharadwaj
 * Madhunandan as Babai, Shiva's friend
 * Vishnu as Hollywood
 * Ravi Varma as Sisira's professor
 * Shiju as Raghuram, Sisira's stepfather
 * Yamuna as Sisira's mother
 * Ravi Prakash as Shiva's brother
 * Kalyani as Shiva's sister-in-law
 * Uttej as Doctor
 * Kireeti Damaraju as Doctor
 * Satya Krishnan as Doctor
 * Chammak Chandra as Fake Fakir / Hospital Security Guard
 * Chitram Seenu

Music
The soundtrack was composed by Jakes Bejoy in his Telugu debut. The song "Maate Vinadhuga" was the first to be released.

Reception
123telugu.com in its review noted that "The audio of Taxiwala is not the regular song and dance album which will impress the moment you hear it. This is a situational album which will grow on you once you watch the thriller and connect with the story", and said it was "Youthful and Contemporary". Telugu360 said "Taxi Waala is an outright classy album and Jakes Bejoy strikes a very emotional chord as well." IndiaGlitz in its review noted "Taxiwala is a winsome album boasting of two melodious songs and two cinematic numbers. If the singers and the lyricist give their vocal/poetic best, the music director blends the known and the new well."

Release
It was simultaneously dubbed and released in Tamil as Sadugudu Vandi and in Hindi as Super Taxi.

Piracy
The movie was initially set to release in May but it was postponed. In June, months before release of the movie, an uncut version of the movie was put up on the internet. On 7 November 2018, 10 days prior to the release of the film, a 45-minute clip of the film was leaked by the piracy website Tamil Rockers. The full movie was leaked a week later. Police immediately swung into action and the culprits were arrested.