Laxman Utekar’s ‘Chhaava’ has two very good performances in a surface-level look at a mighty historical figure

Vicky Kaushal and Akshaye Khanna play a hero-villain pair made in heaven. But despite some nice touches, the “mass”-flavour film stays at an arm’s length. The rest of this review contains spoilers.

When I watched the mega-blockbuster Jailer, I was startled that a film starring Rajinikanth – the family-friendliest Super Star – would depict a bloody neck after a beheading. Then, we got Animal, Marco, Kill – all of them various levels of hits. And now, with the super-success of Chhaava, I think we can begin to make a case that we, the audience, have begun to demand increasing levels of blood and gore. Gone are the mock fights of the dishoom-dishoom days. In Chhaava, we get close-ups of a fingernail and a tongue being pulled out. The leading man sheds so much blood, with deep prosthetic gashes on his torso, that his skin colour seems to be crimson. Even the suggestions of violence are amped up. We don’t see the end result, but a little shepherd girl is set on fire, and traitors are punished by having an elephant trample them to death. I am not here to say whether this is good or bad. I am just making an observation before I begin talking about the movie.

You can read the rest of the review here:

https://www.galattaplus.com/laxman-utekars-chhaava-has-two-very-good-performances-in-a-surface-level-look-at-a-mighty-historical-figure/

You can watch the trailer / video review here:

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