Bholaa, the remake of Kaithi is massy, dark, and entertaining but only for a niche who really enjoys watching South-Indian action-thrillers. If its novel plot had been treated with better VFX and digestible action, it could have been the best film by Ajay Devgn.

Bholaa is the remake of a 2019 Tamil-language action thriller film, Kaithi. Bholaa is directed by Ajay Devgn and revolves around an ex-gangster who is out serving 10 years in a prison. After being discharged, he wants to meet his daughter for the first time who is currently in an orphanage. However, fate has other plans and he is accidentally trapped in an intense war between police and gangsters. Bholaa has to get out of this situation within a single night. That’s that. That’s the plot.

While the time-frame of the movie is a single night and 80% of it only captures the journey to reaching the location of conflict, what makes it so intense is the n-number of high-octane and adrenaline packed action-sequences. While most of it are the typical logicless south-Indian action sequences, it is entertaining to watch Ajay Devgn pull it off.

The writing is undoubtedly great. The plot by Lokesh Kanagaraj is novel and very intriguing. The screenplay is also great wherein the movie directly starts from the discharge and the journey. The back-story of Bholaa, his gangster life, and how he ended up in the prison is only quickly glimpsed upon in the second half and the writers don’t dive much into it. This hints for a sequel as a lot of the back-story will be revealed in it. Or maybe a prequel diving into the who-why-when of the character.

Ajay Devgn is only evolving as a director with every passing film. His hand on his craft is solid and he knows what he wants on the screen. He is experimenting with cameras, shots and sequences. He has also managed directing the other actors and the entire execution very nicely. With this, he has also managed to be honest to his acting. He is evolving on that front too.

On the acting front, the performances by everyone is perfect. Ajay-Tabu is a duo that you cannot break. They look great together. Also, Tabu individually is such a great performer. Sanjay Mishra and Gajraj Rao were great with their part too. However, the show-stopper for me was Deepak Dobriyal. He has pulled of a performance like Ranveer Singh as Khilji in Padmavat. He is vicious and scary! Hats off to his act.

On the technical front, what lacked was sensible action-choreography and VFX. The VFX looked animated and very cartoonish. The action scenes too were too over-the-top and hard to digest. Only hard-core south-Indian action movie fans can tolerate something like this. Overall, the tone of the film is very dark. Maybe Ajay Devgn has a thing for this as even Shivay had a similar tone. Ravi Basrur’s BGM is a cherry on the cake.

Yet, on the whole, Bholaa is a good watch given that it checks all the boxes to entertain a massy audience. Also, it is a treat for Ajay Devgn fans to see him in this heroic figure. If you could tolerate KGF and Pushpa, then this is your tea.  

You can watch the trailer here: