Bholaa Shankar – Mediocre action drama

Chiranjeevi, Tamannaah Bhatia, Keerthy Suresh, Sushanth, Raghu Babu, Murali Sharma, Ravi Shankar, Vennela Kishore, Tulasi, Sree Mukhi, Bithiri Sathi, Satya, Getup Srinu, Rashmi Gautam, Uttej and others..

bhola shankar review

Following the blockbuster success of Waltair Veerayya, Megastar Chiranjeevi is back with a new movie, Bholaa Shankar. Meher Ramesh wielded the megaphone after a 10-year hiatus, and the movie hit screens globally today. Dive into our review to know how the movie fared.

Story:

Shankar (Chiranjeevi), a taxi driver, along with his sister Mahalakshmi (Keerthy Suresh), lands in Kolkata for her education. In the meantime, a mafia gang, led by Alex (Tarun Arora), kidnaps girls in the city. Shankar aids the police in bursting one of their kidnaps, and Alex decides to take revenge on Shankar. What happened next? Did Alex kill Shankar? Who is Shankar? What is his past? The answers will be known by watching the main movie.

Plus Points:

Megastar Chiranjeevi knows his fans’ pulse and always delivers the best to keep them entertained. In this film too, his mass appeal is a feast for fans. Chiranjeevi once again shows the best of himself, and his ease in performing both action and emotional scenes is impressive.

Keerthy Suresh gets a decent role, and her performance is simply impressive. Again, she has a neat space to perform emotionally in this flick.

Tamannaah Bhatia looks gorgeous, and she gives her best even though her screen presence is minimal. Sushanth, Murali Sharma, and the others are just okay in their roles.

The action sequences are well-composed, and the cinematography significantly adds to the show. Dudley showcases his best work, especially during the fight scenes.

Minus Points:

The story takes the first hit. The story is quite routine, and there is no freshness in any scene. Chiranjeevi tries his best to uplift the film with his acting in comedy and action scenes. Unfortunately, there is no high moment in the film.

Meher Ramesh did a below-par job as a director. He failed to make the movie enjoyable by infusing a racy screenplay. Some scenes in both halves could have received a better treatment.

When it is a Chiru movie, one would expect better songs and energetic dance moves. Sadly, the film lacks both, and the score is too bad. Mahati Swara Sagar failed to make an impact.

The film has many characters that don’t help the narrative. Actors like Uttej, Raja Ravindra, Brahmaji, and others could have been given more space to perform.

Tamannaah is just limited to very few scenes, and she doesn’t have any scope to showcase her performance. Comedy scenes are okay, but they need better treatment to appeal to family audiences.

Technical Aspects:

Meher Ramesh wasted an excellent opportunity to make this Vedalam remake into a great movie. He designed Chiru’s character well, but failed to write an engaging screenplay. Had he concentrated more on the narration, the movie’s result would have been different.

Composer Mahati Swara Sagar failed to leave a mark. The editing by Marthand K Venkatesh could have been better. The cinematography by Dudley is neat and enhances the viewing experience. Production values are good.

Verdict:

On the whole, Chiranjeevi’s Bholaa Shankar is a mediocre action drama with decent performances from Chiranjeevi and Keerthy Suresh. Comedy scenes here and there worked well in both halves. Keep your expectations in check while watching this movie, as it features a few unnecessary scenes and a laggy screenplay.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.5/5

Bhola Shankar is set in Kolkata. The city is immaterial, because, apart from a smattering of Bengali, visuals of the Hooghly bridge and Durga puja festivities, plenty of scenes have evidently been filmed on sets. Shankar (Chiranjeevi) arrives in the city with his sister Mahalakshmi (Keerthy Suresh), whom he enrolls in a fine arts stream. Later in the film, I think, there is a mention of her studying architecture in her graduation. Never mind. We aren’t supposed to remember and question such things. Her character goes through memory loss, so maybe we should also let it be. Meanwhile, the narrative is busy with its nods to the other famous Shankar enacted by Chiranjeevi — Shankardada. 

Shankar takes up a job as a taxi driver in a company run by Vamsi (Vennela Kishore), whose colourful characterisation and the equation he shares with his wife and father-in-law (Pradeep) paves the way for some campy fun. An incident that occurs in the opening segment followed by a character’s assertion about the arrival of a monster-like saviour makes it more than evident that Shankar’s innocent act as an ordinary man is a farce. It doesn’t take long before the narrative progresses into a revenge drama mode, giving ample scope for Chiranjeevi to take on any number of baddies with maniacal glee. 

The bond between Shankar and Mahalakshmi is saccharine sweet and the narrative brings in an equally good-hearted Srikar (Sushanth) into the mix, apart from Lasya (Tamannaah Bhatia) as a silly criminal lawyer, accompanied by her juniors (Viva Harsha and Hyper Aadhi). There’s also Brahmanandam in a cameo, Murali Sharma and Tulasi later in the tale, Sreemukhi, Rashmi Gautam and a whole lot of comedy actors, from Venu Yeldandi to Satya, but none of them make a mark. They have to be content with merely being present in a ‘Boss’ movie. 

The Boss himself does not have anything fresh to chew on. There are plenty of references to his older films such as Annaya and Aapadbandhavudu. There are also ample references to Pawan Kalyan’s Kushi and Ram Charan’s Rangasthalam. All this nostalgia, rather than contributing to the starry aura, only falls flat in the absence of a narrative that evokes empathy. The story deals with trafficking, a principal character is in danger and yet, it does not evoke an emotional connection.

Shankar’s characterisation also remains at the surface level. In the original, Ajith is shown as a shrewd thug who would do anything for money and his change of heart does not happen easily. But Shankar’s character, pandering to the larger-than-life superstardom of Chiranjeevi, holds back from going all out to show him as morally skewed. Hence, his change of heart also does not make an impact. 

Once the film lays bare its revenge motives, all that is left is the confrontation. Shankar’s run-ins with Shawar Ali, Tarun Arora and others who are cast as caricaturish villains are marked by unimaginative action set pieces, punctuated with forgetful songs. 

The 160-minute film is an ordeal to sit through. We have seen far better work from Chiranjeevi and Keerthy Suresh. To an extent, it is Tamannaah who seems to have had fun playing an outlandish character.

It is high time Chiranjeevi acts in new, contemporary narratives and embraces his age. The actor-star with an enviable body of work needs a reinvention and even the fan service can do with fresh ideas.