'Harom Hara' Movie Review

‘Harom Hara’ Movie Review

Cast: Sudheer Babu, Malavika Sharma, Sunil, Nasser, Jayaprakash, Arjun Gowda and others.

Music: Chetan Bharadwaj

Cinematography: Aravind Viswanath

Producer: Sumanth G Naidu

Writer - Director: Gnanasagar Dwaraka

Sudheer Babu has been waiting for a hit since a long time. He teamed up with ‘Sehri’ fame Gnanasagar for ‘Harom Hara’. Touted to be a complete action drama, the trailer and songs impressed the audience big time. Can Sudheer Babu deliver a hit with ‘Harom Hara’? Let us find out straightaway.

Story:

In the 80s, Subramanyam (Sudheer Babu) comes to Kuppam from his village in order to make a living. He works as a lab assistant in a school and gets into a fight. His job is gone due to that and he is puzzled as he has nowhere to go and the financial problems in his life torment him. At this point, Subramanyam’s attention shifts towards gun making. He starts learning and making the weapons without anyone’s knowledge. His work brings him a lot of customers and he becomes a big name. He develops a few enemies along the way as well. What problems did Subramanyam face? How did he survive from rivals? What challenges did he come out successful from? Where does life take Subramanyam? All these questions will be answered in the movie.

Analysis:

In a land of atrocities, an outsider steps in and goes against the injustice happening in the society. He grows gradually into a messiah of people and starts making enemies along the way. He finally wins the battle against bad people. This is the formula of commercial cinema for decades. The writers and directors are scoring blockbusters by making minor changes and setting the story in new backdrops. Rajamouli mixed port backdrop with mother sentiment for the same storyline and made ‘Chatrapathi’ a blockbuster. Prasanth Neel took the same story and set it in gold fields background for ‘KGF’. Sukumar chose red sanders smuggling as the backdrop for ‘Pushpa’ but maintained the same story. Looking at ‘Harom Hara’, it seems like a mixture of these movies. Starting from the story, we can see inspirations all over and the lack of originality paired with over-the-top elevations for a class hero like Sudheer Babu are its disadvantages. But the movie definitely gave entertainment and engaged the audience for two and a half hours.

Though all the above-mentioned films have the same path, and have a similar hero characterization, the backdrop is quite unique. In ‘Harom Hara’ too, the director Gnanasagar decided to give a fresh look by selecting guns-making as the backdrop for the story. Hero is a gunsmith and grows bigger through his work. The entire drama revolves around it. But the red sanders smuggling in ‘Pushpa’ and gold fields mining in ‘KGF’ happened in real life as well. They made it larger than life but it was still believable to the audience. However, the guns-making culture shown in ‘Harom Hara’ did not happen in the Kuppam area at all. The idea of a huge gun mafia in the Kuppam area that too in the 80s seems hard to believe. It would have been passable if the makers said that it was a fictional land but mentioning Kuppam and speaking in the local slang did not work out as people may not connect to the backdrop at all. The lack of believability is a big minus for ‘Harom Hara’.

Keeping the story and backdrop aside, the movie is a decent action drama without a doubt. The story runs on a predictable note but the scenes are canned in an interesting manner. Though it may not look like Kuppam, the area was designed quite well. The production designer did a fantastic job. The high technical quality and the action sequences at regular intervals help ‘Harom Hara’ in running smoothly. Though the villains were made weak despite huge introductions, the hero’s character is presented amazingly. The logic goes for a toss in certain areas but the rise of the hero as a gunsmith is the highlight of the first half. The interval fight makes the mass lovers go crazy. But the drama did not work out as desired in the second half. The elevations given to the hero do not generate the same impact as the drama is not effective. The hero’s graph is inconsistent in the second half and it is why the elevation scenes look over-the-top. Though the action parts are great, the scenes that lead to those fights are weak. The ‘Kateramma’ fight from ‘Salaar’ and the climax fight of ‘Vikram’ were used as it is in this movie. ‘Harom Hara’ ends as expected. Overall, the film has stuff that entertains the masses and action lovers. But people might get a feeling of Deja Vu in many places.

Performances:

Sudheer Babu shocks you. He has a class image but he did high-octane action sequences in this film. We take some time to get used to his character in the movie. He tried to impress the audience with his trademark stylish yet subtle acting. Though he did complete justice to the character, there are places where the over-elevation did not suit him. He uttered dialogues in typical Chittoor slang.

Malavika Sharma got a decent role compared to what she did in the Telugu film industry till now. But her character is not related to the main plot of the movie. Sunil is the most important character after the hero and he did wonderfully. By doing ‘Pushpa’, he mastered the slang and delivered once again. There is ease in his acting. All the villain roles start off strongly but fizzle out soon. Ravi Kaale, Arjun Gowda and the actor who did the main villain role are good. The rest of the actors are fine.

Technicians:

‘Harom Hara’ is a very sound film technically. Music director Chetan Bharadwaj brought out the mass side in him for the first time. His work in action sequences and elevation shots has worked very well. There is a certain intensity in his background score. The songs are average. Aravind Viswanathan’s cinematography is equally good. He gave a unique look to the film. Though the filters are clearly visible, they set the tone perfectly. 80’s mood is conceived quite well. The production designer did a very good job. The producers spent well by not considering Sudheer’s market. Gnanasagar Dwaraka definitely has a lot of potential. He penned a script that is worthy of having a star hero and designed the action scenes brilliantly. But the inspirations from other movies can be seen throughout the movie. It’s like he wanted to make something like a certain movie but not an original one as the originality goes missing.

Verdict: ‘Harom Hara’ – A Mixture Of Many Things!

Rating: 2.5/5