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Bhama Kalapam Movie Review: This crime thriller's exciting premise needed better story-telling
This is a crime thriller where nothing moves forward without convenient plot points being thrown around every few minutes.
Title: Bhama Kalapam
Cast: Priyamani, John Vijay and others
Director: Abhimanyu Tadimeti
Run-Time: 133 minutes
Streaming on: AHA (Telugu OTT platform)
Rating: 2.5/5
A rare egg stolen from a museum by seemingly low-profile gangsters becomes a coveted object that someone believes holds the future of humanity. This is an exciting way of putting across the premise of 'Bhala Kalapam', the Telugu-language crime thriller that has a philosophical message to give. There is another way of explaining the premise and the bad news is that it's unexciting in the way it's told by this web original: A series of contrived coincidences result in this coveted egg temporarily ruining the peace of a housewife, who is condemned to pulling off a highly improbable set of machinations on a fateful day.
Coming to the point of 'Bhamal Kalapam', Anupama (Priyamani) is a prized YouTuber whose recipes are a hit. She has a terrible weakness for showing childish interest in her neighbours' lives. She and her husband, a white-collar employee, live in a housing complex where a Christian pastor named Daniel and a Muslim family also live. (The reference to religious identities becomes important because of the hot take on God that the film offers).
On a fateful night, a neighbour gets murdered and it falls on Anupama to deal with the accidents that ensue from this one shocking incident. A team of cops descends on the apartment complex while a smooth-talking and ruthless gangster is on the loose in the same city.
This is a crime thriller where nothing moves forward without convenient plot points being thrown around every few minutes. It feels like a small world where a coveted egg lands up in a truck full of eggs and not on the road, or a truck full of onions. The villain's evil laughter is so stale that it feels like an ode to the Rajanala era of villainy. The stylistic slow-motion shots are thankfully few and far between.
'Bhama Kalapam', whose showrunner is Bharat Kamma (the director of Vijay Deverakonda's 'Dear Comrade'), would have worked better had the naivete of its characters been fleshed out smartly. Anupama is seen as a destroyer of harmony in a scene that is topped by the pastor's benevolent intervention. This is a terrific moment that should have been far more effective. Sharanya Pradeep plays a domestic servant who becomes Anupama's reluctant accomplice. The two women set off on an incredible journey that has no trace of believability.
For an untrained, simple housewife, what all Anupama does in a span of a day is barely convincing. The screenplay invites us to believe that some quirk of fate is going to save her. But this fate plays out in a choppy fashion. The play of destiny is not fortified well, especially because the hidden enfant terrible on the loose feels like a routine character.
Despite the obvious shortcomings, the screenplay tries to rise above superficiality, at least occasionally. Anupama's attempt to catch a sinner red-handed backfires in a hilarious turn of events.
Justin Prabhakaran's songs and Mark K Robin's BGM are alright. Deepak Yeragera's cinematographer is an asset.
