Bagheera movie review: Sriimurali and Dr Suri deliver a grounded, perfectly well-balanced origin story for this superhero

4/5

Bagheera movie story: Vedanth, a gold-medallist IPS officer, is determined to clean up the city he’s first posted to. But after a string of high-profile arrests, he is asked to rein it in and not mess with ‘the system’ that’s in place. With his hands tied because of the khaki he wears, Vedanth embraces a new identity – that of the masked vigilante Bagheera, who takes care of all the dirty business he can’t do as a cop.

Bagheera movie review: Filmmaker Prashanth Neel recently said that director Dr. Suri took a bold step to not include the best bits of Bagheera in the trailer and that the film is far better than that. Well, he wasn’t kidding! Dr Suri’s Bagheera is so much more than the glimpses he chose to show audiences earlier. The beauty of it is that the filmmaker chose a very grounded approach to his story-telling rather than going all guns blaring as his mentor Neel would have probably done.

Prashant Neel on Bagheera: I was only a sounding board for director Dr Suri 

Bagheera has all the ingredients that a vigilante/superhero origin story needs – we are introduced to the hero’s backstory; he has a cop for a father and a late mother who’d instilled certain values in him. What drives him to take the law into his hands, which is the crux of the tale, is also addressed. Is it an injustice meted out to him or someone dear to him, is he revenge-driven or all of the above? Well, you’ll have to see the film to figure that out.

As a fan of the superhero genre, the big worry was if the inspirations from Hollywood films in Bagheera would give one a been-there-seen-better feeling. Yes, there are dime-a-dozen moments that will seem familiar if you have seen enough films in the genre, and yet Dr Suri puts his own stamp on it; like, for instance, a sequence involving an electric pulse and an unexpected form of CPR. The film is, of course, action-heavy; throats are slit, hands are cut, but it doesn’t ever border on distasteful.

Sriimurali looks fantastic in khaki and as Bagheera; the actor is in great shape, not overly bulky, yet toned enough to convincingly play a daredevil vigilante. Kudos to Dr Suri yet again for presenting Vedanth/Bagheera in the most restrained manner – he’s never over-the-top in his words or actions. Prakash Raj, as the CBI officer on the hunt for Bagheera, is the second-best thing about the film and supports Sriimurali ably in the second half. As the love interest, Rukmini Vasanth was clear that her “real estate” in the film was limited, and that is all that it is - a necessary element in a commercial film, but one that could have been avoided at the outset. She looks pretty and tries to dignify the limited opportunity she is given. 

Visually, Bagheera is like Batman, which was intentional, says director Dr Suri 

I was not a fan of ‘Garuda’ Ram after KGF: Chapter 1. There was so much build-up around the character that I was expecting a major show-down between Garuda and Rocky, which didn’t happen, so there was no pay-off really. Dr Suri does a much better job with the actor in Bagheera; he looks menacing, the conflict between him and Bagheera is better explored and there’s a big train-top fight between them.

The cinematography by AJ Shetty is top-notch but the visual effects are not as much. But that’s a minor flaw in the larger scheme of things. One of the best decisions the team took was to ditch the Neel favorite Ravi Basrur in favor of Ajaneesh Loknath for the music of Bagheera – the film’s theme tune lingers long after one leaves the theatre.

Bagheera movie verdict: Bagheera is well-written, well-executed and well-acted. Yes, it is dark in tone, but not in the Neel template. It’s a film about a vigilante who operates at night. It is action-heavy and leaves one wanting more. If you love superhero flicks, well, you know what to do.