BOTTOM LINE
Himsa For Audience

OUR RATING
1.75/5

CENSOR

U/A, 2h 42m

What Is the Film About?
Raghu (Daggubati Abhiram) is a kind-hearted and ordinary guy whose love of life is Ahalya. She is fierce and advocates violence, whereas Raghu is the exact opposite.

What happens when Raghu faces is pushed to the extreme by the system after a tragic incident shatters his life is the movie’s plot. Did it change his basic nature is the undercurrent theme.

Performances
Abhiram Daggubati makes his acting debut with Ahimsa. He is moulded as a typical Teja hero in the movie. The character, too, deals with similar emotions. From a soft-spoken guy to a fierce personality, the change forms the arc given to him.

Abhiram has surface-level looks to fit the ‘typical’ director Teja hero personality. There is a fear plastered on his face, and it is exploited to the maximum by Teja. Abhiram is seen mostly with the expression, and then there are additional fear and aggression when necessary. The problem is that other expressions are dominated by the pertinent one. For a debutant, he is okay, but Teja has managed to extract better in the past with his heroes, debut or otherwise.

Geethika, the heroine, tries hard but fails. Her tole is more expressive than the hero, and she goes way overboard with it. The characterisation, particularly the dialogues and actions, don’t help her cause. In the emotional scenes, she is fine, but again they are overdone. In the end, it turns out to be a forgettable fare.

Analysis
Teja, the veteran director of blockbusters like Nuvvu Nenu and Jayam, directs Ahimsa. At a basic characterisation level, Ahimsa is similar to his past flicks, but here the core theme is related to violence and non-violence, and it is dealt with through the backdrop of a relatable topic and victimhood.

The movie opens with intrigue, but it soon digresses into mundaneness with the romantic track. It wouldn’t be a problem normally, but the over-the-top execution, the acting and the dialogues make one cringe in discomfort. It instantly takes us back to the Nijam days from Teja. Who can forget the ‘Eenadu’ and ‘Andhra Jyothi’ comedy track? Well, we have a companion here.

It would still have been fine if the cringe and over-the-topness were restricted to comedy or romance, but that is not the case here. Every new character that arrives behaves in the same way with loud and over-dramatised action.

Amidst all the verbal mayhem torturing the senses, there is a core courtroom drama surrounding an issue. The content is contemporary, and we have seen it getting execution in a far gripping way in grounded settings and performances. Here everything is overblown and excessively done. The direction also screams outdatedness. Still, Ahimsa manages to hold the attention briefly.

By the time the courtroom drama ends, the engaging part of the movie also ends. The next direction the narrative takes is where Ahimsa loses the whole plot.

For starters, the time taken to reach the interval portions itself is overstretched. By the time the interval arrives, one gets a feeling of watching an entire movie. But the real ‘himsa’ is only beginning at the time.

The second half offers nothing novel. It is all about the hero and heroine escaping from three different sets of gangs who are after their lives. The ‘Lomdi’ gang among the three are the definition of excess in a script that leads to assault on the senses.

Just when one thinks the movie might end, there is another half an hour with a song in the mix. The final stretch towards the completion is sheer drivel with so much unnecessary violence. Even until the last minute, the director doesn’t waste time in inducing the pain.

Overall, Ahimsa has two key issues which would have made for an outdated but engaging narrative. However, the outdated and over-the-top execution and mind-numbing second half kill any chances. If you are a fan of the director, skip the movie and save yourself from the pain.

Performances by Others Actors
The movie is filled with actors. Everyone goes overboard in their performance, starting from Sadha. She is still fine, considering the impact of the role in the narrative. But, others like Rajat Bedi are highly irritating. Manoj Tiger playing the scheming, devious lawyer is fun, but in a bad way. The rest of the actors, like Ravi Kale, Devi Prasad, Kamal Kamaraju etc., fail to register.

Music and Other Departments?
RP Patnaik works as music director for Teja after a long gap. However, the combo fails to deliver any worthwhile song, although a couple does sound nice on the ear. The background score is effective, even though loud. Sameer Reddy’s cinematography is okay, capturing the rustic and raw settings of the village and forest. The editing is okay. The writing comes with a generous mix of double entendre. A couple of lines register, but overall it’s nothing more than ordinary.

Highlights?
Basic Theme (Violence Vs Non-Violence)

Brief courtroom Drama Stretch

BGM

Drawbacks?
Weak Story

Second Half

Outdated OTT Execution

Did I Enjoy It?
No

Will You Recommend It?
No

Ahimsa Movie Review by Mirchi9

Billy Joel has left the building — almost.

Since beginning his residency at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 2014, the “Piano Man” singer has set performance records, sold more than a million tickets and serenaded countless fans with his classics. Now, he’s ready to bring it to an end.

During a news conference Thursday, Joel announced that he would end his residency in July 2024, with his 150th lifetime performance at the venue.

“It’s hard to believe that we’ve been able to do this for 10 years,” he said. “I didn’t know how long it was going to last.”

He added: “I’m now 74, I’ll be 75 next year. Seems like a nice number.”

The Grammy winner said he was “lucky enough” to perform at the Garden every month since 2014, a gig that was only supposed to continue until demand fell off. Looking back on those first months, Joel said he thought audiences would lose interest after a while. Instead, the opposite happened, as shows kept selling, “and people keep coming.”

The residency eventually led Joel to break the record for the most performances at the Garden. In June 2015, the Long Island native surpassed Elton John — who performed 64 shows — with 65 performances.

“There are a lot of venues out there but only one Madison Square Garden — my home away from home,” he said then.

During Thursday’s news conference, New York City Mayor Eric Adams praised the “Uptown Girl” singer.

“There’s only one thing that’s more New York than Billy Joel — and that’s a Billy Joel concert at MSG,” Adams said. “For more than 50 years, Billy’s music has defined our city and brought us together.”

Joel played his 100th show at the Garden in 2018, and a banner was raised to celebrate the occasion. He later told the New York Times that he didn’t think he’d have “the physical wherewithal” to continue the show five years later.

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times in March, Joel said the fact that he was still performing at the Garden was “bizarre.”

“At the end of every tour, I feel like that’s it for me: ‘OK, I’m done,’” he said. “And then some time goes by and it’s like, ‘Let’s go out and play.’”

With his residency coming to a close next year, some fans might wonder if a Joel farewell tour (akin to John’s) might be a possibility. Here’s his answer: “I have a disdain for capitalizing on that.

“‘Let me threaten that it’ll be the end, and then I’ll make a lot of money,’” he told The Times in March. “I’ve seen bands so many times announce their farewell tours, and then they never go away. I’ve seen a couple of the Who farewells at this point.”

I never could wrap my head around movie trailers that give out the entire plot. Makers of Zara Hatke Zara Bachke made it worse with two trailers that revealed more than they should have and left very little for us to watch and find out on our own. Directed by Laxman Utekar, the romantic comedy has a lot going on at the same time and it does leave you with many questions at many places.

Zara Hatke Zara Bachke’s premise

Set in a small town of Indore, we are introduced to college sweethearts Kapil Dubey (Vicky Kaushal) and Somya Chawla (Sara Ali Khan), who are happily married and living in a small house alongwith Kapil’s vegetarian and religious family – his parents, maternal uncle and aunt and their young son. While Kapil is a yoga instructor, kanjoos and with a middle-class mentality, Somya comes from a modern Punjabi family, is quite outgoing, makes more money giving coaching classes and dreams big in life. The two are the happiest with each other but Somya does feel the pinch of not having any privacy in the house and is desperate to get her own dream house soon.

Since they can’t afford heavy EMIs, they fall for a government scheme and end up faking a divorce to be eligible for a lottery allotment. Pretending to hate each other, they separate and start to live separately. How far this drama goes and what’s the fate it eventually meets forms the plot.

What works, what doesn’t

At 132 minutes, the film doesn’t look dragged or needlessly stretched, but definitely has its high and low moments. While the high never gets to a point that it makes you go wow, the lows are definitely loaded with flaws and loopholes.

The story that Utekar has co-written with Maitrey Bajpai and Ramiz Ilham Khan, starts of on a very funny note and keeps the momentum going with harmless jokes, natural light-hearted humour and some comic punches. But post interval, it just meanders without any direction and goes off track.

At this stage, I really wish it stuck to being a romantic comedy and not get so melodramatic at places it didn’t require to. The script has nothing that you haven’t already seen or something that will leave you in splits. If anything, it only gets a bit predictable in the second half and comedy of errors is only left with errors. The flaws in writing and direction are tough to overlook.

Performances somewhat try to salvage the situation but not for too long! Sara shows some restraint in her acting and it’s visible in her actions or reactions. There are some scenes where she goes overboard but never to the extent that it annoys you. Vicky showcases a myriad of emotions and like a smitten lover, he keeps that romance quotient alive onscreen. He portrays the small-town guy pretty convincingly and does keep that raw demeanour intact. I quite liked Vicky and Sara’s onscreen chemistry. I won’t say it’s extraordinary but definitely better than what we’ve seen in frivolous guy-meets-girl kind of rom-coms.

Supporting cast impresses

Among supporting cast, Rakesh Bedi and Sushmita Mukherjee as Somya’s parents are funny and true to their characters. There’s a sequence between Kapil and Somya’s father having drinks in the car where the father is trying to figure the reason behind their divorce. It’s not only well-written but also well performed without looking awkward.

At some point, a nosy colony guard Daroga (Sharib Hashmi) is also thrown in to make things look funnier. While the actor doesn’t disappoint with this performance and screen presence, I have a bone to pick with makers here for wasting an artiste of his calibre and reduce it to a cameo. You wish his role was more fleshed out.

In fact, the man who plays Kapil’s lawyer friend helping him in the divorce case is a masterclass in overacting and didn’t really merit the screen time he has been given. Amid all this, the crooked and dubious agent Baghwandas (Inaamulhaq) delivers his part pretty well and brings a comic relief in the whole story.

Zara Hatke Zara Bachke’s music

What truly stands out in Zara Hatke Zara Bachke is the music. After a very long time, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the songs in a film. Sachin-Jigar’s music and Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics create a whole vibe. Tere Vaaste plays in your mind for long and Phir Aur Kya Chahiye has already topped the charts while Sanjha touches you emotionally. Baby Tujhe Paap Lagega isn’t there in the film but it’s already a peppy party number.

Zara Hatke Zara Bachke is an easy-going family entertainer that won’t bore you. But, it won’t leave a lasting impact either. A few laughs here and there and some loud characters make it watchable, however the story needed way more depth and definitely a better screenplay would have helped.

Film: Zara Hatke Zara Bachke

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Sara Ali Khan, Inaamulhaq, Sushmita Mukherjee, Neeraj Sood, Rakesh Bedi, Sharib Hashmi

Director: Laxman Utekar