Writer-director Ali Abbas Zafar’s attempt to give the soul of Bollywood tropes an AI nish appeals in parts
he most tense moment in Aavesham is placed not during one of the numerous ghts, but in the middle of a game of dumb charades. The game takes place in the lair of Rangan (Fahadh Faasil), a colourful gangster, stories about whom range from the chillingly realistic to the far-fetched.
It is a cleverly-crafted scene which makes us question our understanding of that character until then, and ends up reassuring us that we made the right assessment after all, only to upset it again spectacularly a while later. This ambiguity about Rangan is one of the things that
lmmaker Jithu Madhavan pulls o successfully in the gangster comedy Aavesham.
Aavesham is a dierent beast altogether with Fahadh running riot as the gangster adorned in bling, and with a habit of sharing his dance reels. We see Rangan through the eyes of three Malayali students — Aju (Hipster), Bibi ( JS Mithun) and Shanthan (Roshan Shanavas) — in Bengaluru, who are frequenting seedy bars with the intention of gaining some
“local support” to take revenge on their seniors who bashed them up.
The scenes leading up to
Rangan’s introduction and the slow reveal of his true stature are a scream. And, to build up on this character, there is Rangan’s sidekick
Ambaan (Sajin Gopu) with a wealth of humorous and scary stories on him that he narrates as if he has witnessed them. Rangan is the kind of character that mainstream stars have essayed in the past, but
Fahadh gives it a spin of his own and runs uninhibitedly wild with it.
The all-pervading presence of this character and Sushin Shyam’s pulsating score somewhat papers over the lm’s many weaknesses, especially in plotting and character development. The interval high was followed by a considerable lull, during which time the lm shifts its gaze from unabashed hero worship and turns it into a cautionary tale.
The youngsters, some of whom are social media stars, as well as Sajin, stand their own amid Fahadh’s one-man show. But no female character, not even a girl from the campus gets substantial presence. It also presents to us a rare insight into Rangan’s personality, which is mostly hidden from us owing to the sketchy writing. Well, it is that kind of lm, which revels in its loudness and quirkiness and leaves little space for quiet introspection and meaningful connections... things that Rangan also appears to crave for.
TThree Malayali students in Bengaluru befriend Rangan, a gangster, to take revenge on a gang of seniors who bashed them up, but things do not turn out as planned
Aavesham is currently running in theatres n a rare Eid week without a Salman Khan-starrer, director Ali Abbas Zafar keeps alive the inclusive spirit of Bollywood with a high-speed action vehicle that runs on easy chemistry between its two drivers — style and substance.
IMade for the masses, the lm carries a jolly heart and some purpose in the swagger beneath the armour of special eects. It follows the time-tested friend-turned-foe formula of Bollywood that was forcefully reinvented by Siddharth Anand in Pathaan and takes it forward in the realm of Arti cial Intelligence. In times of deep fakes, Zafar digs into the receding human factor in technology.
An old hat Firoz aka Freddy (Akshay Kumar) and a rakish Rakesh alias Rocky (Tiger Shro ) are the trusted soldiers of
Zafar
Two soldiers, played by Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shro, rejoin the fray against a masked antagonist