Bhaagamathie Movie Review
Anushka’s 5 year long phase involving Baahubali franchise, Rudramadevi and much prior to such acclaimed works was her ‘Arundhati’. These movies made her the ‘Actress-on-Demand’ by leading actors, filmmakers and investors. So here is Bhaagamathie, which happens to be the latest and immediate outing from Anushka after her massive ‘Baahubali’ franchise.
Sanchala (Anushka Shetty) is a sincere IAS officer, who is imprisoned for killing her boyfriend (Unni Mukundan). The cabinet ministry now decides to trap an honest minister (Jayaram) under a fake case to ruin his reputation. They appoint a CBI team headed by Asha Sharath to investigate upon this and commute Sanchala, minister’s trustworthy to a desolated palace inside forest, which is reported to be haunted. While being confined to this spooky place, Sanchala starts experiencing paranormal activities and do others.
It is evident that director Ashok has taken scrutinizing efforts in crafting some sequences, which really looks best. Say for instance, the initial moments of Anushka inside the haunted palace that is nearly for 10 minutes hardly has any dialogues. It would even prompt us to read the script paper of that sequence, where it’s completely based on action and background score along with sound effects. Perhaps, Ashok would have written some scenes keeping Telugu audiences in mind. But when it comes to Tamil dubbing, it rarely scares for they’ve already been accustomed to such horripilating moments in a horror film. But on the counterpart, he plays a brilliant game by involving the flashback scenes of Anushka and Unni Mukundan that begins with flashes of latter’s death with the suspense built till end. This indeed keeps the raciness at right momentum. The second half moves at rapid pace than the first hour with last 20 minutes offering twists and turns one after the other. But there are minuses, which move out of logic box. One such example could be Anushka nailing her own hand on the wall, but the justification remains vague. Revealing more on this could be a spoiler.
Anushka looks effortless during many portions, but does a decent job with her performance. Asha Sharath’s role looks like an extended version of her characterization in Papanasam. Murali Sharma gets a substantial role. Jayaram does an impeccable justice to his role with nuance acting. Unni Mukundan gives a compelling effort and succeeds.
Although, it’s a commercial movie, the team hasn’t compromised with the technical aspects. Thaman’s background score is improvising a lot these days and Bhaagamathie gets more support from his musical support. Sound effects deserve special mention for it adds the exact feel of eeriness that is required to the script.
But overall, Bhaagamathie doesn’t excite you either with spookiness or twists that come by the end. Disclosing more on this with references to some of the all time hit movies of this same league would be a spoilsport. But for someone down the sub-urban or village region, it could be a onetime watchable movie.
