Bollywood stars Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon’s film, Bhediya is dubbed in Telugu as Thodelu. Directed by Amar Kaushik, the film had a simultaneous release in Telugu today. Let’s see how it fares.
Story: A young engineer named Bhaskar( Varun Dhawan) from Delhi goes to Arunachal forests to construct a road in the remote area. While making arrangements to build the road, as an unexpected incident, Bhaskar will be bitten by a wolf in the forest. Later, Bhaskar starts transforming into a werewolf. To get treatment, Bhaskar approaches a veterinary doctor Ankita( Kriti Sanon). Instead of going to a general hospital, why Bhaskar goes to Ankita for treatment? Will Bhaskar accomplish his mission? What’s the actual identity of Ankita, forms crucial crux.
Performances: Varun Dhawan did his part perfectly. His energetic screen presence and makeover with muscular body transformation are added advantages for the movie. Varun’s acting is impressive in the man-to-wolf transformation scenes.
Heroine Kriti Sanon is cute as a girl from a small town and her acting is decent. On the flip side, Kriti’s hair styling is not done in a proper way. Kriti Sanon’s on-screen chemistry with Varun Dhawan is okay.
Abhishek Banerjee is hilarious in his hero side-kick role. His typical one-liners evoke good fun at regular intervals. Other supporting artists such as Shakir Khan, Deepak Dobriyal are fine in their respective roles. Noted hero Rajkummar Rao’s cameo towards the end portions fails to register.
Technicalities: The music composed by Sachin-Jigar is good as two songs in the film are composed nicely with a fresh tuning. His background score is okay to an extent.
The photography work by Jishnu Bhattacharjee is nice as he tried to showcase the entire remote area and forest locations in Arunachal neatly. The editing by Sanyukta Kaza is okay but he would have chopped off close to ten minutes in the second half for a racy narrative.
Not only for the lead cast but the Telugu dubbing work for all characters is also done perfectly. The VFX and graphics work used to showcase wolf and some beautiful locations are done nicely.
Analysis: Director Amar Kaushik’s thought of making a film on the man-transforming-wolf concept should be definitely appreciatable. His on-papers ideas are reflected on the screen largely. Adding weightage to Amar Kaushik’s vision, Niren Bhatt’s simple writing also works in favor.
After a fun-coated forty minutes of the first half, the transformation of Varun Dhawan into a wolf during the interval point is outstanding and raises expectations on the latter half. It is not that the proceedings during this time are bad but run on a slow note.
To summarize, Thodelu has a strong message showcasing the importance of forests for the balance of ecosystem. The fine performance from Varun Dhawan and comedy-coated proceedings make the film a watchable fare.
Verdict: Passable comedy drama!
Rating: 2/5
