118 is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film written and directed by cinematographer turned film director K. V. Guhan in his Tollywood directorial debut. The film stars Kalyan Ram, Shalini Pandey and Nivetha Thomas in the lead roles. The music for the film is composed by Shekar Chandra and the film is produced by Mahesh S Koneru under the production company East Coast Production. The film revolves around a journalist who is propelled by a recurring nightmare to investigate if it’s real. The film released on 1 March 2019. It received generally positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success.
While sleeping in room number 118 of the Paradise resort, Gowtham dreams about a girl getting beaten and a car being thrown into lake. The next day, he is revealed to be an investigative journalist who stops a money laundering operation by fighting off the home minister’s brother and his goons while filming everything. The minister is exposed and Gowtham is invited to a night party at the same resort where he sleeps in room 118 again. When the dream recurs, he visits a psychiatrist named Dr. Athmaram Divakar who advises him not to take the dream seriously. Soon, a car chase with the home minister’s henchmen takes Gowtham to a road he saw in his dreams. Jumping into the nearby lake, he discovers an empty car belonging to a church. The Church Father tells Gowtham it was driven by a woman named Esther. A strange gate symbol leads Gowtham to a shut down printing press where he discovers missing posters of the girl in his dreams, Aadhya. He later realizes that Aadhya went missing and his dream appeared on full moon days. Believing the visitors during the other six full moon days to have had the same dream, he sets out to contact them but is contacted by Aadhya who tells him not to look for her. He uses police help to trace the phone number and chases a van containing the phone but finds it belonging to none. Some hints from the visitors lead him to a photo of Aadhya and a girl from Venkataramana Public School whose employee named Murthy is murdered while on his way to help Gowtham.
Gowtham visits the office of Sai Videos office, who filmed an event at the resort, and in the footage sees Aadhya with a man who is soon kidnapped by some goons and a chase ensues, resulting in his death. Gowtham then goes to meet the Father and identifies a nun as the woman who contacted him as Aadhya. She then reveals that the Father told her to make the call and even lied about Esther to Gowtham. He then heads for Vizag to meet the Father, following which the nun is killed. Esther is revealed to be the daughter of the Father who is then shot by the goons. A fight ensues, resulting in Gowtham escaping with Esther who then tells him Aadhya was a friendly computer science teacher who showed affection on Prabhavathi, a young student who died after a vaccination in the school. Aadhya tried to investigate and came to know about illegal vaccinations run by Alanta company. Aadhya and Esther went to the Paradise resort to meet a friend for help, but had to part away because of a phone call that told Esther her friend with an accident. Upon finding Aadhya missing and goons looking for her too, Esther had to run away.
Gowtham visits Dr. Athmaram who claims to make humans enter the world of dreams and decides to use his technology after a successful trial. Gowtham, his fiancée Megha and assistant Ramesh are on their way to the resort but get attacked by the same goons and a car chase ensues, resulting in a fight that leaves Gowtham injured. Asking both Megha and Ramesh to not enter until he voluntarily comes out, he injects himself with the drug given by Athmaram and sleeps. He enters the dream within his mind, and realizes that he was the one supposed to help Aadhya but couldn’t as he too had to leave upon learning about the accident of Esther’s “friend”. He then watches Aadhya being taken to room 118 where she meets the CEO and owner of Alanta Company V.N. Shah, has all the evidence snatched from her, is brutally killed and buried near a fountain. Gowtham gets it excavated upon waking up and finds a bracelet with a USB drive containing Aadhya’s final message and evidence against the company. The culprits are captured and punished, Gowtham is praised by the media, and V.N. Shah shoots himself. Later, Gowtham has a bright dream in which Aadhya appears with a smile.
Directed by K. V. Guhan
Produced by Mahesh S Koneru
Written by K. V. Guhan
Screenplay by K. V. Guhan
Starring Shalini Pandey, Nivetha Thomas
Music by Shekar Chandra
Cinematography K. V. Guhan
Edited by Tammiraju
Production East Coast Production
Release date 1 March 2019
Running time 126 minutes
Country India
Language Telugu
Visitor Rating: 4 Stars