Bhola Shankar

• Cast: Chiranjeevi, Keerthy Suresh, Tamannaah
• Director: Meher Ramesh
• Music Director: Mahati Swara Sagar

While leading a new life after moving to Calcutta with his sister, Bhola gets entangled with traffickers. Further interactions reveal a connected past.

Although the plot could have been interesting, it is drowned in the screen time given to the main character. Interactions between the characters vital to the plot depend on too many coincidences for it to be coherent. Overall, there is nothing new in this story presented through the male gaze, saturated with a savior complex.

• Acting: During the first half of the movie, Chiranjeevi’s performance was not entirely unacceptable. In the second half however, an interesting choice was made to give his character an accent that was on par with his ongoing decline in performances. Keerthy Suresh is close to redeeming herself from a downward dip in acting in recent years. Her scene with Murali Sharma as their home is raided was done very well. Tamannah has seen better lines and scenes before, even though this performance wasn’t her worst. Sushanth, questionably cast, remained an awkward presence throughout. Aadhi, despite his limited screen time, is a breath of fresh air with his timing.
• Production Design:
  • Most of the sets had little detail which contributed to them looking unfortunately, like sets. 
    Technology like cctv footage, pictures sent through social media apps and phone-based location tracking were important to the storyline. They could have been taken a bit more seriously to make them look at least slightly more believable.
  • There were entire scenes in the movie that you wonder why are overproduced. Why they seem to have flown to a foreign country for a song, is beyond anyone’s comprehension. When Lasya stops Bhola to supposedly threaten and take revenge, the sets, props and costumes are pointless.
  • The costumes for most of the main cast were bad. Ill-fitting costumes and trope-y characterizations gave the movie an amateur look. What served to be comedy was the limited number of outfits and the amateur tattoos the villains had, particularly Chintu.
  • As with most recent cinema, what happened in postproduction to the blood gave it an appearance of blood in video games. The same can be said for the glass breaking throughout the movie.
• Editing:
  • The predictable story and scenes only made the terrible transitions stand out. There were scenes ending with no closure or segue and montages with unevenly spaced-out shots.
  • What they could have done was snip off all the slow-motion shots so we weren’t as bored. Also, no one needed replays of the fights when they were referenced afterward, they weren’t that hard to remember.
• Music: The actual music was passable, no moment particularly stood out. When you add the lyrics, the songs become atrocious and comedic.
• Dialogues: With movies these days, it seems redundant of myself to repeat what I am saying over and over but when actors being paid to entertain me can do it, I probably have more of a right to if not.
• Themes: What probably aimed to mimic the wonder of being a brother like in Annaya and Master, what we are given is an inflated ego hidden behind the male gaze.

• The accent Chiranjeevi put on in the second half has to be discussed – No one was going to identify Bhola in Calcutta based on his accent, so why did it drop? Was he faking it during his entire past? He wasn’t particularly hiding it from anyone throughout his stay there, so what happened?
• Lasya’s character is pretty terrible. She supposedly is a lawyer on a losing streak, makes the most empty and naïve threats to Bhola, and then emotionally manipulates him in the name of revenge – is there much to romanticize her character? Probably not. I know she was written just to have a woman on the screen, we could’ve done with just Maha, but really?
• We knew there was going to be a buildup to something with the casting of Anitha Lama as Vamsi’s partner – it’s a tired joke that should be put to rest unless you can’t think of anything else to write.
• The writing of the movie is very weak.
  • When Lasya loses her case and is suspended, we never see what happens to Bhola – supposedly the judge who gave a damn about ethics would have also addressed Bhola committing perjury – we get no closure in that scene
  • Maha’s friend played by Sreemukhi is a wonderful character that the audience roots for when she’s not being objectified – what happened to her?
  • When Bhola murders the people on a top floor of a building that appears to be one of the villains bases, Lasya casually walks in through the elevator
    • How is it that their base with a helipad is on top of a shopping mall and they haven’t been caught, especially with Chintu’s uniform – surely a leather vest, bare chest and tattoos would have tipped someone off
    • For a gang that has access to technology that can track people down to the floor of the building they are in, they seem to have no plan for security. I’m so lucky I don’t traipse onto top floors of shopping malls.
  • The story also depends on coincidences – like the group of sex traffickers just happening to ask Maha for a sketch, Lasya being Srikar’s sister

No.

• I was genuinely rooting for Chintu to have a proper outfit change before he died, RIP Chintu
• Why was Rashmi Gautam cast at all? I’m not opposed to her being cast as an actress, but her interactions with Chiranjeevi on screen were borderline repulsive
• Keerthy Suresh and Murali Sharma – favorite duo, they were excellent – too bad they were dealt a bad hand with this one
• Mystery of the movie – you mean this whole time, the sex traffickers had something to do with a pointedly cast Keerthy Suresh? You don’t say. So difficult to believe that the only reason another woman would be cast was to either love, save or objectify her.
• Okay here we go, here’s the most irritating part of the movie, sit with some facts (these are not all, just some of the ones I could find):
  • Chiranjeevi (Bhola) – 68 years old
  • Tamannaah (Lasya) – 33 years old
  • Sithara (Lasya’s Mother) – 50 years old
  • Murali Sharma (Maha’s Dad) – 51 years old
  • Tulasi (Maha’s Mother) – 56 years old
  • Sreemukhi (Maha’s friend) – 30 years old
  • Vennela Kishore (Vamsi) – 46 years old
  • Anitha Lama (Vamsi’s wife) – 30 years old
  • Rashmi Gautam (guest appearance) – 35 years old
• It’s boring – mentions of past movies, mimicking Pawan Kalyan, delusional references to his acting skills – it’s useless and self-serving

• Movie Rating: 1/10
• Maguva Impact Scale: -2