Bholaa Shankar Review: Another routine remake film from Megastar

Since his comeback in 2017, three out of six movies of Chiranjeevi are remakes. This remake of Tamil film 'Vedalam' is also disappointing.

Hyderabad: Chiranjeevi has become an actor known for remakes since his comeback in 2017. Three out of six movies have been remade since his comeback. Today, Bholaa Shankar, a remake of the Tamil original, Vedalam, was released in theatres. The film is written and directed by Meher Ramesh. AK Entertainments produced the film.

Bholaa Shankar is just another regular commercial Telugu movie we have watched several times from different heroes over many years in theatres. No matter if Megastar’s fans’ feelings are hurt by this review, the reality is that it hurts more when such a talented actor like Chiranjeevi does the routine stuff like Bholaa Shankar.

---

Bholaa Shankar is a simple tale of brother and sister where the brother Shankar (aka Bhola) takes revenge for the damage caused by a mafia to his sister Mahalakshmi. The story has two different shades, set in two different worlds, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Chiranjeevi played Shankar, and Keerthy Suresh played Mahalakshmi.

Now let us look at the detailed review of the film. Bholaa Shankar looks like a story woven with emotions between a brother and sister. But unfortunately, the emotions are not strong enough to connect with the audience. Chiranjeevi and Keerthy Suresh share the bond between the characters, but the emotion couldn’t be felt. The story is locked in a regular revenge pattern. Only Bhola’s motive looks focused from the beginning to the end, and the rest of the characters are just present on the screen.

The first half of Bholaa Shankar takes place in Kolkata. Chiru is seen as a taxi driver, and Keerthy Suresh is seen as a sketch artist. Tamannaah plays a criminal lawyer. The film runs with parallel episodes of action and comedy, where a couple of action episodes make a better impact than the comedy sequences.

The second half of the film has a regular flashback that was written to turn emotional, but it doesn’t. The flashback is set in Hyderabad. Chiranjeevi’s attempt to speak Telangana slang goes wrong and fails. The second half looks like an extended one. Even the emotions fail to connect and lead to the climax.

Meher Ramesh did a good job in terms of direction. His stylish making and solid production values are worthy. But when it comes to the screenplay, he fails to engage the audience, as every element looks predictable except for the interval twist. Meher followed the regular map of a commercial cinema, with comedy, action, and songs arriving one after the other in the line in between where the story dilutes.

There is nothing much to talk about the makers of the film, AK Entertainments, except for the huge investment in the sets for songs and action episodes. Chiranjeevi just played Megastar once again. His performance is star-packed and nothing more. His imitation of Pawan Kalyan is utterly bad and looks silly. Between all this regular performance from Chiru, his expressions in the comedy scenes are notable and good.

Keerthy Suresh delivers the best performance among the entire cast of the film. She is both energetic and innocent in the present and flashback episodes, respectively. Tamannaah just plays a glamour quotient for the songs. She neither shares any romance with Chiru nor makes her presence important for the film. Sushanth’s role can be avoided. Any fresher could play that even.

Sreemukhi gets a better role than Tamannaah and Sushanth. All the bunch of comedians from Brahmanandam to Vennela Kishore and from Srinu to Aadi just fill the screen and don’t make any impact. It is very disappointing to see Meher Ramesh picking numerous actors to add comedy to the film when the script doesn’t have the strength for it. None of the technical aspects of the film make any quality impact on the output of the film. Mahati Swara Sagar completely fails with the music album. He is okay with the background score.

On the whole, Bholaa Shankar can be watched once if you are utterly free this weekend without any important work except to watch another routine-stuffed Telugu commercial movie. It is neither mega-packed nor greatly made. And now, the decision is yours.