Vijay Deverakonda starrer NOTA, directed by Anand Shankar is a political drama that has the 'Rowdy' reprising the role of a Chief Minister. On an unexpected note, he is forced to assume power, and how he handles the state and his responsibilities after that forms the crux of the story.
 

This is Vijay Deverakonda's Tamil lead debut. He's already created a market here with films like Pelli choopulu, Arjun Reddy and Geetha Govindam. NOTA is surely going to boost this further, as he breeds swagger. Right from the start, he carries the film on his shoulders. The rest of the supporting casts including Nasser, Sathyaraj, M.S Bhaskar, & Sanchana Natarajan do their jobs neat and clean. Despite the presence of a star like Vijay Deverakonda, senior actors Nasser, M.S Bhaskar, and Sathyaraj hold their own forte in the scenes they appear.

Sam CS background music is pleasant, but the songs could have been better. Santhana Krishnan Ravichandran's visuals makes the movie grand. Technically the film is a real feat, with the kind of camera work & fast-paced editing by Santhana and Raymond, respectively, which capture the intensity in the script. Half the way, the major problem with the film is that we don't know where the story is heading towards. The motive of the film seems unclear sometimes, because of which a section of audience might not be too engaged.

The movie takes a dig at almost all the popular political parties and recent political events. But the familiarity of the situations make a few jokes predictable. The film could have been a lot better had it concentrated more on the political part, than the other subplots and drama. The film tells us that there are a lot of problems with the political scenario of the country. We've already seen it in films like Mudhalvan. But that is addressed only at the end which turns out to be too late, but still a positive finish.

Anand Shankar has chosen to show us a very bold political film with a young CM as his lead character, but if he had focussed to continue more with that, it would have certainly been a better experience and intense. The pre-climax portion looked a bit flat because of a lack-lustre sub-plot. At one point Vijay faces a court case which puts his political career in jeopardy but that issue isn’t addressed and left open ended. The film loses its momentum towards the end and a more focused approach was needed.
 

Is this a political film? Is this a drama? Is this a thriller?  This might be a confusion to the audiences midway in spite of enjoying the consistent political spoof scenes. Nevertheless, this is a harmless watch, for it provides you some entertainment.