Bholaa movie review: Ajay Devgn delivers no-holds-barred, bang-for-your-buck actioner

The biggest problem Bollywood has faced with this genre has been the inability to keep everything else in the film subservient to the action: bunging in song and dance and other irrelevant details, causes things to come to a standstill. Here Devgn, who now seems to have settled into his dual role, having had considerable practice (his last was ‘Runway 34’), makes sure, for the most part, that the set-pieces keep coming. And he keeps slaying, single-handedly keeping the monsters at bay.

Ajay Devgn in a still from Bholaa.

And that’s got to do with ‘Bholaa’ being an official remake of ‘Kaithi’, Lokesh Kanagaraj’s 2019 blockbuster starring Karthi. The film introduced us to elements that make up the director’s universe, which melds action and emotion, splitting the screen between charismatic good guys and even more charismatic bad guys. In Kanagaraj’s last outing ‘Vikram’, the powerhouse ensemble which included Kamal Haasan, Fahad Faasil, Vijay Sethupathi, was trumped by the climactic glimpse of Suriya, who plays A Very Bad Guy.

The plotline of ‘Bholaa’ is nearly the same as Kaithi, with a few additions and tweaks. The biggest is to change the injured male cop into a female, and that’s a smart move. Tabu takes on the part with great gusto, making an effective dent in this all-male universe, nailing the power that a cop yields yet showing a softer human side. Without her, the film wouldn’t have been as watchable. And that goes for two other actors here, Dobriyal and Rao: the former, nearly unrecognisable as the manic-murderous hood, is scarily good; the latter plays bad well, too.

Without Tabu, Bholaa wouldn’t have been as watchable.

The trouble with keeping this kind of action sustainable over two hours forty minutes is evident every time the film goes off the main track. A flashback featuring Bholaa’s past, which includes a romance (Amala Paul), slows things down, as do the numerous instances when his distraught daughter is shown. Also, because this is a Devgn enterprise, the hero has to have enough time to flex solo. Unlike Karthi, whose ‘aam aadmi’ feels like one of us, Devgn’s Bholaa is mythologised as an indestructible superhero. The challenge of making each set-piece different is clear when, for the nth time, Bholaa is alone, on the road, facing a swarm of killers. And it all starts looking the same; the greed to extend action sequences never works out well.

Fortunately, there’s enough going on to keep everything going, as Shiv bhakt Bholaa, aided by holy ‘vibhooti’, his valiant cop companion pointedly named Diana, and a brave informer called Aijaz, makes sure that he is the last man standing. Again, fortunately, we aren’t left too much time to dwell on the power-sharing in the trinity– obviously, our Bholaa has pole position– as the plot gets back to its relentless cracking of bones, showering of blood, skewering of bodies, and parts thereof.

For the faint-hearted? No way. Bang-for-the-buck? Oh yes.

Bholaa movie cast: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Deepak Dobriyal, Sanjay Mishra, Gajraj Rao, Vineet Kumar, Kiran Kumar, Makarand Deshpande, Amir Khan, Amala Paul
Bholaa movie director: Ajay Devgn
Bholaa movie rating: 3 stars