1.25/5
At a point, Chiranjeevi was a legend. It’s hard to believe now, considering all he does is either watered-down remakes like Godfather or bolstered fan service movies like Waltair Veerayya. Still, at a point, Chiranjeevi was the ideal actor. He had swag, he had such charisma, and the dialogue delivery felt like it came from one of us; yet it was much better than anything we could do. He had dance, he had action, he had emotions, and he had screen presence.
At a point. At a point.
Now, he is making a mockery of his legacy. Just yesterday, opinions aside, we saw the type of role a senior hero should be doing. A role with heft, a character with weight, while aging gracefully and remembering that he is no longer a young and dashing hero. If Rajnikanth, the man who was one of the creators of the “old-man-romances-young-girl” complaint that goes on to this day, can change that for a mature portrayal, what’s stopping Chiranjeevi? What’s stopping the Megastar?
Meher Ramesh.
Fresh from the hodgepodge that was Shadow, Meher Ramesh comes back with a vengeance to create an even bigger mess this time, destroying Chiru’s legacy to cement his of being one of the worst filmmakers in TFI history. He establishes a landmine with a quarry of problems, all set up correctly to blow up in front of our faces like the colorful rang bombs that go off once every three scenes in the movie. This type of mockery of cinema, or in a way destruction, doesn’t come just like that. It takes a particular craft, and I need to figure out how or where, but Meher has loads of it. Not only does he have loads of it, but he ends up dragging Chiranjeevi into the mess to create an “aava-ginja” for ages.
PLOT:
Shankar (Chiranjeevi) is a taxi driver that dearly loves his sister Maha Lakshmi (Keerthy Suresh). They move to Kolkata to start a new life, with Shankar meeting Srikar (Sushanth) and getting him married to Maha Lakshmi while romantically being interested in Srikar’s sister Advocate Lasya (Tamannah). Amid everything, he is square in the middle of a human trafficking scam. His steps to solve this scam reveal his past as Bholaa Shankar. What he did as Bholaa Shankar and how he solved the problem form the rest of the story.
WRITING:
Meher Ramesh’s script- sorry, Siruthai Siva’s script, which, in case you did not know, made the “amazing” Annaatthe recently- is as old as the ages. Vedalam itself is a terrible movie. It has cheap comedy inserted at the wrong intervals, the sister arc is done rather crudely, the romantic track is horrible, and the music is some of Anirudh’s worst songs barring Aaluma Doluma. There isn’t anything of standard except a few scenes and a few deft touches, and instead, there’s everything that is cringe and represents the decline of commercial cinema. It is not a movie or a script that should be remade in any industry. Aaluma Doluma and the much-hyped transformation scene is what brought it to safety.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop our director here. To his credit, Meher takes this script and removes the “cringe” that he highlighted in the pre-release events from Vedalam. But he also replaces it with his cringe. Leaving out the vulgarity of Vedalam, especially seen in scenes where Lasya’s equivalent, Shweta (played by Shruti Haasan), has an older sub-lawyer lust over her, doesn’t mean you can replace it with a track where Chiranjeevi re-creates the Kushi nadumu scene with Sreemukhi. Keeping out Soori’s over-the-top antics doesn’t mean Vennela Kishore can replace it. Meher’s script removes something bad at every stage and replaces it with something worse. As a result, he also takes out the good stuff from Vedalam. The entire Vedalam intro act and the characterization of a rowdy who knows no morals go amiss because of the pandering towards Chiranjeevi. As soon as Chiranjeevi enters as Bholaa Shankar in an elaborate flashback, Rashmi Gautam sits beside him and talks seductively. What the heck is happening?
There’s many a time I wanted to walk out because the nature of the script is such. It’s a plot as old as the hills with a surprising twist-filled in the middle, and then the story continues. The same applies to Bholaa Shankar. Ramesh attempts to set forward a human trafficking angle but writes absolute caricatures of villains. I don’t even remember their names except for Brett Lee, which should tell you how appalling the writing becomes. Every character becomes a caricature, unfortunately premiering with Chiranjeevi himself. Meher takes what we like about Chiranjeevi and amps it up to 1000x, creating a rambunctious space filled with over-acting and over-drawing that creates such uncomfortable moments to watch. When it’s not painful, it’s boring and head-ache inducing. Keeping what Meher makes from Bholaa Shankar, a press-forward of comedy that acts as a filler, a lack of any development of the proceedings, and a cheap attempt to help scenes pass by.
The less talked about the screenplay, the better. When Meher writes his scenes from now on (if he gets another movie after this debacle), he must ensure he gets them checked. Scenes written for emotional connection are inherently over the top and registered with the most caricaturish dialogues that, even when there is an effort, there is no connection. But that’s a sporadic case. Almost everywhere, no action has been made to make some convincing writing effort, the forefront being the romantic track. Tamannah makes it her life mission to take revenge for Bholaa for something he does earlier. When she pranks him about his sister, he breaks a nearby wall. She falls in love with him. Cut panna and MILKY BEAUTY NUVVE NAA SWEETY starts blaring from the walls. What the heck is happening? It is insulting when a filmmaker takes his audiences for granted, but Meher isn’t taking us for granted; he’s taking us to be brainless. No matter what he does, he thinks fans will watch his movies like a herd of sheep.
Throughout the movie, Meher continues to write scenes that are set in such outlandishness and are so messy. The first half speaks loads to this when the comedy doesn’t work, and it ends up coming in more bunches to the forefront. Songs come in at the worst time possible and sound very bad. Like the original, the comedy creates a filler for the drama where the scenes do not have to be developed. It leads to some supremely tiring moments, and that’s when the action scenes start. Although they are all composed with no form, with the sole purpose of just filling up the screen with actual gore, they work as something happening on screen that keeps it going. However, where Meher misses out here is the portrayal of Bhola Shankar. Siva makes Ajith look vicious when he transforms, which makes his transformation more effective because he goes from docile to dangerous within seconds. Chiru is never dangerous; Meher writes it and directs it so that he’s just going about his day killing some people without that level of “step-back” in fear that the audience needs to feel. Considering how well he can do these scenes, it’s criminal to put this in Chiranjeevi’s filmography.
Yet, the writing keeps getting worse to pair with the horrible direction (something talked about later). The composition of the proceedings becomes painful, especially when they don’t have a structure and are based on instinctive ideas and fan service. The entire Srimukhi arc, as mentioned before, just for that Kushi tribute, comes off as crass. Every time Bholaa references Pawan Kalyan, Chiru, and Meher, both combine to ham it to a point where we, as an audience, cannot take enough of it. Eventually, the plot follows the structure of sister-brother relations like this, where we get some bearable scenes. Not because of how well they are written; but because they follow a template with no creativity so well that even the no creativity gives us a chance to breathe.
Overall, Meher adapted Vedalam with few changes, which is disastrous considering the original had many problems. What’s worse is that the “little” changes take out all the positives, leaving an empty and torrid script. However, that’s not even the start of our problems.
DIRECTION:
On the other hand, Meher Ramesh, the director, takes our brains, mushes them with 32 different types of knives, and feeds them back to us. That Meher Ramesh is one of the most trolled directors should give you a hint about the level of execution that he maintained during Bholaa Shankar. Nothing changes. It’s so rambunctious from the first frame, with everyone given the memo to overact as much as possible. He directs his scenes with caricaturish carelessness that makes each scene ramble over and over before finally ending, but the next scene picks up on the same level of rubbish. The tonality is always loud and boisterous, bringing plot points with no subtlety and nuance to the direction.
Ramesh always approaches his scenes with “making sure that the audience knows every element” visually. Let’s take the opening scene. He sets the color palette of his cinematographers to be wholly contrasting and doesn’t mesh together at all. The scene is supposed to have a human trafficking base, but he directs it so messily that, in the end, we don’t leave with anything we don’t know. The villains are introduced in the most routine way possible, creating a space to enter by showing each of their body parts and then mouthing some horrendous dialogues. It’s a new way of being routine; it’s badly routine. Not one part brings entertainment to us as an audience, but as a director, it’s obvious Meher needs to have an ounce of creativity too.
His handling of Chiranjeevi is terrible too. Chiranjeevi knows how to act well as a star, but Meher dials his acting to where it becomes over-acting. Caked with makeup, every expression Chiru makes is just a mix of faces that don’t fit together, suspended in a space that, as said many times before, is significantly over the top. In the scenes where Chiru needs to be fierce, Meher cuts out everything that makes him powerful and ends up dealing with him in a rather dull way. The transformation scene would have come out badly, but it shows us that Chiru has transformed, right? Instead, Ramesh makes sure Chiru goes through the action without anything different other than his actions of violently destroying hundreds of men. What is the point of making a movie when you can’t even deal with a star?
From a narration perspective, the movie is always way too loud and raucous for us to process anything. The sound mixing could be better. I got a headache every minute because of the racket. But rather than that, Meher is never interested in creating a cohesive narrative from whatever he has on paper. It’s either a bloated highlight reel of the worst comedy or an attempt to make Pawan Kalyan, Chiranjeevi, and Mega fans happy with crass references. What is the narrative? In the end, we only think about how messy every scene was directed without an ounce of attempting to create a smooth narrative throughout the movie.
The mass moments are executed so crudely too. Mass doesn’t mean creating a false sense of hype- it means staging the scene so well that the audience gets out of their seats for the leading character. Bhola doesn’t do this for a minute; it makes us want to jump out of our seats with disgust. Meher’s direction creates a mess out of every scene so severely that, toward the end, there is nothing left to be interested in. The stakes are nonexistent because Meher never makes us involved in the script.
The first half suffers from this, the second half suffers from this, and as a result, some decent action blocks on paper could be more interesting. Scenes like the climax, which technically should work with the Kaali reference, are shrouded by predictability and a lack of creativity foremost. But instead, by that point, we’re not interested in the cacophonous mess Ramesh is throwing onto the screen. Ultimately, Im running out of words to describe that Ramesh’s writing and direction are as appalling as possible.
PERFORMANCES:
Chiranjeevi is a sore disappointment in this movie. Im fine with Chiranjeevi over-acting because he does well in it, as seen in his past film, but in this movie, Ramesh makes him a clown. With weird faces and stretched-out dialogue delivery, Chiru does not attempt to act as naturally as he can. Adding on to this, he even struggles with some of the dances, too; some are the choreographer’s fault, but some are his inability to get the moves correct. His worst performance since his comeback. Keerthy Suresh teeters on Annaatthe part 2, but in the end, she keeps her composure to deliver something decent. Her performance in a crucial reveal scene, something I thought was overblown in the original, shows that she made an effort. Tamannah is another sore spot in the movie; her dubbing worsens it. Sreemukhi adds to the mess happening on screen. Vennela Kishore is sorely unfunny. Murali Sharma and Tulasi are wasted. Tarun Arora is getting good at playing the stereotypically lousy performance of a cardboard-cut Bollywood villain. No one else makes an impact.
TECHNICALITIES:
Technicalities are not it either. Mahathi Swara Sagar’s music is loud and overbearing, often distracting from the movie as some music would have helped salvage the ship somewhat akin to Shakti. His BGM, devoid of sound mixing, is discordant with grotesque instruments and sounds. A disappointment considering his previous works and his stamp as Mani Sharma’s son. Dudley’s cinematography is basic and has nothing remarkable about it. The color palettes could be better, and the angles do everything the same. Editing is so rough- why are there the most random cuts throughout? Marthand K. Venkatesh didn’t try, like most of the team. Production values are better than previous AKents’ works, but they still could be more impressive.
SUMMARY:
Bholaa Shankar was doomed from the start, admittedly. But seeing Ramesh strew together Chiranjeevi in one of the worst movies of his career, and seeing Chiranjeevi capitulate into a mess that he will regret down the line, is never easy on the eyes. If you want to go (please don’t), go for a colorful intro scene of Chiru and a sound title card. If only the team worked as hard as that title card maker did. Ramesh needs to go to a film school or choose a different profession in this industry. As an audience, it’s just too much to bear. One of the easiest ways to waste 20 dollars.
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