Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya

Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya (styled Agent Sai) is a 2019 Telugu comedy detective thriller directed by Swaroop R. S. J., who co-wrote it with its lead actor Naveen Polishetty. Shruti Sharma makes her Telugu debut, and the film was produced by Rahul Yadav Nakka under Swadharm Entertainment. It was released on 21 June 2019, became a hit with critics and audiences, and is streaming on Prime Video. It was remade in Tamil as Agent Kannayiram (2022).

What the story is about

Athreya is an eccentric amateur detective in Nellore who runs a small agency he calls the FBI, the Fatima Bureau of Investigation, with his assistant Sneha, and mostly handles petty cases. Things change when a friend tells him about an unidentified body dumped near a railway track. A brief spell in a holding cell brings him a case from a fellow inmate, and the investigation pulls him into a much bigger and more dangerous mystery around unclaimed bodies found along the railway.

Cast and crew

• Naveen Polishetty as Sai Srinivasa Athreya
• Shruti Sharma as Sneha

Naveen Polishetty has said that Swaroop first contacted him on Facebook, and that the two worked on the script together for eight months. Mark K. Robin composed the music and Sunny Kurapati shot the film. Before release, Nitesh Tiwari, the director of Dangal, praised the trailer and Polishetty, who acted in his film Chhichhore (written “Chichore” in the report), as 123telugu reported.

What critics said

The Hindu wrote that Naveen Polishetty sparkles in this humorous detective thriller. The Times of India, The Hans India and Deccan Chronicle each gave 4 out of 5, Deccan Chronicle calling it a “Telugu Sherlock Holmes”, and Film Companion called it the best comedy thriller of the decade, according to Wikipedia. Telugu360 rated it 3/5, finding the first half slow but the second half and the layered screenplay engaging. The film won three Zee Cine Awards Telugu.

Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya OTT

The film is streaming on Prime Video. The Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya OTT page shows the platform with its source and when we last checked it.

Sources: the Wikipedia article; reviews in The Hindu (21 June 2019) and Telugu360; 123telugu; the Prime Video listing; our own records.