‘Bhediya Review: Overlong Bollywood Werewolf Comedy Delivers Powerful Environmental Message

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Comedy horror films have captivated Indian audiences since the early 2000s, with over 100 films released in the genre. 'Bhediya' by Amar Kaushik (lit. 'The Wolf') Bollywood's first comedy, despite its serious proportions, is a humorous adventure set in the middle of the jungles of North East India that conveys a message of support for the middle class environment and against racism and xenophobia. It also has the potential to be accurate.

Bollywood star Varun Dhawan plays Bhaskar, an ambitious road worker from Delhi who is contracted to build a highway in the dense forests of Arunachal Pradesh, a state in northeastern India bordering China. Along with his cousin Janardhan (Abhishek Banerjee) and helped by locals Jomin (Palin Kapak) and Panda (Deepak Dobriyal). The problem is you have to get permission from the locals. The village elders objected, but Bhaskar convinced the youths of malls and "Netflix, not nature." With the help of corrupt local officials, he was able to get enough signatures to complete the deal.

To complicate matters, Bhaskar gets badly bitten on the back by a wolf and is treated by vet Anika (Kriti Sanon). The wound heals very quickly, and Bhaskar finds himself a wolf by night, defeating the officials who approved the road project one by one. The panda enlists the help of a 120-year-old shaman to turn Bhaskar back into a human, but the local police and militia are determined to hunt the wolf Bhaskar and the wolf that bit him.

In his third film, Kaushik is continuing his tradition of delivering powerful social messages through mega entertainment packages. Her first horror comedy Stree (2018) is a feminist story, Bala (2019) deals with hair loss and skin discoloration. In "Bhedia", the main message is environmental protection and another Indian practice is to label people living in the Northeast as Chinese, which is a casual racism that is rampant across the country. The message is straightforward with no subtlety, but that's often the best way to get it across to a wide audience, and Kaushik and writer Nirn Bhatt handle it very well.

The focus in "Bhedia" is on the teenagers rather than the creatures and sometimes the distractions. When the creature appears, it's a world-class visual effects triumph by the team that worked on Motion Picture Co.'s blockbuster "RRR." in London. The performances were good with Bdewan and Sanon carrying the film effortlessly, but the standout was Banerjee, an actor who managed to pull off both the psychopath and the corrupt comedy with equal grace and timing.

At just over two and a half hours, the film overstays its welcome, consisting of traditional Bollywood song and dance songs and romantic interludes, interspersed with the occasional werewolf story. There are some MCU style easter eggs in the credits and "Bhedia" is set in the "Street" world. MLM is definitely fun.

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