The movie starts off with an odd scene in a hospital and then cuts to a year later. Shiva comes to Hyderabad to live with his friend and find a job. His friend suggests him a couple of jobs and Shiva tries all of them. But he is not satisfied 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. Shiva and his friends search for a car in their budget but fail. One morning, Shiva gets a call from an unknown person who tells him that he has a car which is ready to be sold. Shiva meets the car's owner and takes the car happily, while his friend is a little hesitant. Shiva starts to work for the Ola Cab Service. On his first ride, he falls in love with a girl named Anusha. Then, he starts to experience spooky things in the car. He tries to contact the car's previous owner but is unable to do so. A fake fakir comes and fools them by taking the car away. The fakir is almost killed while he is inside the car. Next morning, Shiva and his friends see the car in their garage. Shiva has to arrange money for his sister-in-law's delivery, so he starts to drive the car again. He is saved from an accident by the car itself. Once, after dropping Anusha at her residence, Shiva is pleaded by a doctor to drop him somewhere. But, the doctor is killed when is hit in the car and is ran on by a train after being thrown out of the car. Shiva decides to go to the car's previous owner's house and steal something so that he can demand money from him. He and his friends go there and find a person in the store roomof the house. They admit him in a hospital. The person wakes up and tells that he knows why the car behaves oddly. He tells that he was a professor of psychology and parapsychology. Once, he teaches a subject called Astral projection through which one can separate his/her soul from the body before death and can also meet the dead. A student named Sisira Bharadwaj asks him to perform it on her. He asks her the reason behind her intention. In a flashback, Sisira tells her story- She lives with her asthma diagnosed mother and her step-father, Raghuram. In the night, after a clash between her and her mother, she wakes up due to suffocation and couldn't find her inhaler and knocks sisira's door only to be neglected by her and her mother dies when she opens the door and she is greatly disturbed by this. She tells him that she wants to meet her mother. The professor performs Astral Projection on her and in the process, she starts to go deep into the Astral world and realises that her mother was actually killed by Raghuram and the doctor, who snatched away the inhaler from her. Raghuram arrives and takes the professor and Sisira in a car, along with his friend, who is a doctor. But both of them hit the professor and Sisira's soul is separated from her body. Sisira's body is taken away by a clinic as she donates her body. On knowing this, Shiva apologizes to her spirit. The professor tells them that Sisira can be brought back to life if they get her body. Shiva and his friends go to the clinic and get the body, with the help of the security guard turned fakir who had tried to steal their car earlier. Raghuram wishes to see Sisira's body and comes to the clinic. He is almost killed by her spirit, but saves himself. Shiva beats him and takes him and Sisira's body to the professor's lab. Raghuram wakes up and tries to take Sisira's body away but the vehicle gets burned by Sisira's soul. Shiva gets extremely saddened. He gets a call from Anusha who tells him that his sister-in-law gave birth to a baby girl. He goes to the hospital only to realize the baby had died due to chromosome abnormality. All of them go to the garage and console each other. While the baby's body is in the car, Sisira's soul enters the body and the baby starts crying. Shiva, his brother, his sister-in-law, his friends, the professor and Anusha come together and cuddle the baby.
Cast
Vijay Devarakonda as Shiva
Priyanka Jawalkar as Anu/Anusha
Malavika Nair as Sisira Bharadwaj
Madhunandan as Babai/Shiva's friend
Vishnu as Hollywood
Ravi Varma as Sisira's Professor
Shiju as Raghuram
Ravi Prakash as Shiva's brother
Kalyani as Shiva's sister-in-law
Yamuna as Sisira's mother
Uttej as Doctor
Kireeti Damaraju as a Doctor
Chammak Chandra as Fake Fakir / Hospital security guard
Chitram Seenu
Satya Krishnan as Doctor
Music
The song "Maate Vinadhuga" was the first to be released.
Critical 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."
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; this included 17 students.
