Bhola Shankar - Movie Review

Chiru is riding high after the stupendous success of Waltair Veerayya which was kind of a comeback movie after Acharya. However, he chose a 2015 Tamil movie movie Vedalam for remake and he chose Meher Ramesh as director, who was famous for giving stupendous duds to star heroes like Shadow, Shakti, Etc.,

Story :- Shankar (Chiranjeevi) and Mahalakshmi (Keerthy Suresh) are brother and sister who shift to Kolkata for joining Mahalakshmi in college. Shankar takes up taxi driver job for livelihood. A notorious gang is kidnapping young girls and selling them to foreign buyers and there is a big network out there. Police seek assistance of the taxi and auto unions to track this network and Shankar gets a chance to do so. However, he doesn't inform the police and starts eliminating them on his own. Why does he take up the task on himself? What's his & Mahalakshmi 's past? Forms rest of the story.

Performances :- Chiranjeevi looked very stylish, his costumes were good, his comic timing is still intact. The grace in his dance is still the same, phenomenal. There is not even a dip in his energy in dances, Action sequences, comedy scenes. He gave his 100% and there's no doubt about that. Keerthy Suresh gets the meatier role after Chiru and she did good job. Tamannah looked great. There is huge casting in the movie, with almost a dozen of comedians. They were fine. Vennela Kishore was good, Annie master was most irritating. Villains set-up and cringe dialogues looked this was of 90's film. 

Technicians :- There are only very few good things about the film. Costumes, Action sequence in ship, a few good comedy dialogues. Songs are way way below Chiru's standards. It looks as if it's low budget movie songs. Even the background score is a letdown. Mahati Swara Sagar wasted a golden opportunity to move to the big league. Editing should have been crisper and should have chopped at least few fights or reduce the length of them. Same goes with age old comedy scenes of hero elevations and unnecessary build ups. We are in 2023, not in Indra days. Now coming to the famous Meher Ramesh, everyone knew what we are going to witness, the day when this film was announced. We were anticipating a Shakti or Shadow, and he has delivered better than that for sure, but it's of no use. It's still a damp squib. The story, narration, emotions and elevations, all are at least a couple of decades older. You can't expect to pull audience to theatres in OTT days, with such content. I guess Meher Ramesh has ruined his last chance as a director. 

Positives :-

Chiranjeevi

Negatives :-

Meher Ramesh

Poor story selection

Age old drama, comedy, action

Summary :- Considering the age and efforts Chiru puts in, he deserved a way better film. Meher Ramesh lived upto his expectations of delivering a sub-par film. This is the 2nd film after Komaram Puli, which I'm well prepared before getting into the theatre that it would be pathetic, considering the director's track record. This film won't pull audience had it been a 90's movie re-release.

Rating :- 2/5 (Boring to the core. Avoid it)

Whenever a Chiru movie fails, lot of comments start pouring that he is done, dusted or they would advise he should stop doing remakes. He proved everyone wrong everytime and for sure he will do it again and again. He scored blockbusters with remakes like Tagore, Shankar Dada MBBS, Khaidi No. 150. Due to the OTT platforms, people have better access to other language movies and the remakes are not an unknown territory now. That's the difference. If the content is good and modified as per current trend, for sure movie will click. Pointing at Vikram and Jailer, people have started advising Chiru to roles suitable to his age. Jailer is a hit after more than a decade for Rajni and same goes with Kamal's Vikram. Just because they scored 1 hit, people start advising Chiru to follow it. His core strength is dances, comedy and fights, so as long he has the ability and energy to do it, he better so such kind of movies only. Rajni's strength is style and dialogues, he is sticking to it. Kamal's strength is versatility and he is keeping up to it. Chiru is a megastar and you don't need to advise him what he has to do or how to do. At 68, he is doing 2 films a year consistently and is doing promotions with enthusiasm. There are lot of vultures who wait for Chiru and his family to fail since ages and they grab the opportunity everytime available. It's not vengeance or anything, it's just sadistic pleasure. The more you cry, the higher he grows.