Banaras (2022) :
Movie Review -
Jayatheertha's Banaras sees Sonal Monteiro and Zaid Khan as the lead pair in a romantic narrative that is far away from mainstream romance. The film has a kick of sci-fi elements like time travel, loops, light speed, etc. Frankly, we have seen these theories of a time loop where the protagonist is trapped in a loop and gets more chances to change the events that have happened to him/her. From a decent film like "Groundhog Day" (1991) to artistic films like "Run Lola Run" (1998), romantic thrillers like "Mirage" (2018), and a recent one like "Manaadu" (2021), there are many films made on the same theme, with different conflicts, of course. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao's "Aditya 369" (1991) changed the definition of time travel films for the Telugu industry and, to some extent, for Indian cinema. After making a fantastic crime thriller like "Bell Bottom" (2019), Jayatheertha chose this topic of romantic drama along with a time-loop thriller, which is quite messy. The motive seems so lost in its own theories that you even wonder why and how it ended like that. For what?
Banaras is about a B. SC. Student named Sidharth (Zaid Khan), who accepts a challenge from his friends to make a simple girl named Dhani (Sonal Monteiro) fall in love with him. Sidharth meets her, tells some spicy story of time travel and a future return, and gets into her bedroom. The picture he shares goes viral, leading an embarrassed Dhani to leave the town and go back to Banaras. Sidharth then decides to take redemption and make things up for Dhani by going to Banaras. There they actually fall in love, only to experience some horrible time-loop events. Will Sidharth manage to break this cobweb?
Banaras is about 160 minutes long, and that's why it looks unnecessarily stretched. Till the intermission point, it remains just a simple rom-com with all the outdated scenes that you have seen in almost every romantic drama of the 80s and 90s. Then, the second half drives you crazy for a while with those intricate time loop events, only to leave you lost at the end. The climax of the film has gone terribly wrong. There may not be any time-loop films with such a simple and weak climax. In the first meeting, Sidharth tells an interesting but confusing story to Dhani that reminds you of Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" (2014), and then the second half reminds you of Doug Liman's "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014), starring Tom Cruise. There's nothing in the first place, and then there is a big disappointment in the climax.
Zaid Khan has just begun his career, and he shows promising signs, if not completely good ones. The character of Sidharth was tough dish, but he cooked decent food of his own. He could have improved on many things, though, such as expressions, tension, variations, complexity, and shades of personality. Sonal Monteiro is far better, though. She looks gorgeous, and she performs well too. Her character doesn't have as many shares as Zaid's, but still, she did a fine job. Sujay Shastry, Devaraj, Sapna Raj, and Achyuth Kumar have some irritating scenes that you wish were not there, but overall they are watchable. The acting unit could have lifted the weak screenplay, but it seems that they were not much interested in doing so.
Coming to the technical aspects, the visuals and editing are far better than what you'd expect. The time loop scenes are well shot, edited, and presented with a good background score. The same goes for music, which comes out surprisingly well. It slows the speed of the film, though, and "Maaya Gange" leaves you somewhat mesmerized. All thanks to the melodious composition of B. Ajaneesh Loknath and the sweet voice of Armaan Malik (Hindi version). Jayatheertha's attempt to create different romance faultlines at the basic level of writing. I couldn't really make out what he was trying to say. He was trying to tell a romantic story, a time-loop thriller, a sci-fi experiment, or a philosophy of life? What does it tell us at the end? Nothing out of it. He should have grabbed only one or two topics out of those 4 or 5 he tried, and then, in my opinion, the same story would have looked better than what it does now. The beautiful locations and tour of Banaras are already available on YouTube; why would anybody want to see them in the film? Even Jayatheertha knew it, and yet he made this film. Wow! Anyways, as a whole, Banaras is a wanna-be complex romantic drama trapped by its own messy storyline. Just a few good scenes here and there, that's all; there is nothing beyond it.
RATING - 4/10*
