In Bharathanatyam, Harsha Vardhan plays a cinema-loving drug baron who is too violent for his own good. On the surface, he is a menacing figure, but his priorities lay somewhere else. After a point, he doesn’t have enough storage space to keep the dead bodies. The baron also keeps getting reprimanded by his wife for getting his collection of white shirts ruined .

It’s a great way to establish a distinct mood for a crime-comedy, and Bharathanatyam starts off on a good note. Writer Surya Tej Aelay knows his Hollywood dark comedies, and that style of humour is predominantly evident in these chunks. However, the film fails to keep up with its wackiness.

Director: KVR Mahendra

Cast: Surya Tej Aelay, Harsha Chemudu, Temper Vamsi, Harsha Vardhan, Meenakshi Goswami

Bharathanatyam tells the story of Raju Sundaram (Surya Tej Aelay), an aspiring filmmaker struggling to write a gripping story. Raju is also fumbling in his relationship with his girlfriend (Meenakshi Goswami), who is unhappy about his financial instability. In a desperate bid to write a realistic script, Raju plants voice recorders at many places, to pick up on conversations. Falling prey to the temptation of easy money, Raju ends up hearing a conversation about a drug deal and decides to follow up on the deal, against better judgement. How this decision comes back to bite Raju forms the crux of the story.

Bharathanatyam is laced with interesting characters who squarely fall on the good side of unhinged. There is a wannabe actor (Harsha Chemudu), who lacks self-awareness but more than makes up for it with his zealousness towards the craft. There is also the criminal’s young brother (Temper Vamsi), a short-tempered man with fewer wits, and a loose stomach. He looks menacing only when he is not struggling to keep himself from going to the bathroom. There is a lot of quirkiness at disposal here. However, such material also needs a self-assured director with a deft hold on the film’s rhythm. Unfortunately, director KVR Mahendra fails to get a grip on his narrative. Bharathanatyam feels disjointed in many parts. For every gag that lands, there are two gags that bomb, and this pattern continues throughout the film.

Bharathanatyam also suffers from the same problems it takes a jibe on early in the film—there is little integrity to the madness, and the writer-director duo often ends up compromising on the film’s pace to make space for ‘commercial’ elements. The entire subplot of Raja and his girlfriend dealing with the former's wobbly finances barely adds anything to the narrative and halters the film’s pace (The KGF spoof is particularly flat). The film's lack of tonal consistency only adds on to the damage.

There is also a half-hearted trope about Raju’s old and frailing parents, struggling with health and money. There is no clarity on why this detail was incorporated, considering the audience never learns its impact on Raja’s thoughts or actions. If anything, it only increases the audience's disconnect with Raja, whom we are supposed to root for.

Despite its hunger for quirky and dark comedy, Bharathanatyam has a fairly straightforward and simple plot, with never enough surprises. There is very little to keep the audience invested or entertained.

Amidst all the chaos, Harsha Chemudu is the only one relentlessly having fun through the film, riffing on the ‘actor-desperate-to-prove-himself’ arc. Even as Bharathanatyam comes close to being totally off the rails in the second half, Harsha keeps us amused with his antics, operating on a whole other level of zaniness. The writer, too, playing on Harsha’s strengths, pens a final act that’s equal parts bizarre and hysterical. If we exit the theatre in a good mood, it’s because of Harsha’s commitment to both his part and the film’s madcap tonality.

Bharathanatyam needed more of such madness and method, in both its writing and performances.