Bodhai Yeri Budhi Maari

Bodhai Yeri Budhi Maari Movie Synopsis: A man visits his friends a day before his wedding and ends up taking a potent drug. How does this change his life?

Bodhai Yeri Budhi Maari Movie Review: Bodhai Yeri Budhi Maari (BYBM) opens with an Alcoholics Anonymous-like rehabilitation meeting for drug Addicts. A couple of the members share their stories and in walks Karthik (debutant Dheeraj , who gets a mass hero-like introduction). He begins to narrate his story, which is a cautionary tale against taking drugs.

We see him as a young man who has everything going for him – a happy family that’s only going to get happier as he is about to get married to his sweetheart ( Dusshara , promising). But then he gets that fateful call which takes his to his friend Roshan’s apartment. And what begins as a bachelor party involving friends takes a weird turn when Karthik ends up snorting a drug (one that’s is more potent than weed and cocaine, we are told) by accident. And Karthik’s perfect life begins to unravel in ways that he might have hardly imagined.

The premise has promise, but BYBM is undone by unimaginative writing and unaffecting characters. Karthik is written as a normal young man, but it is hard to identify with the character because Dheeraj’s performance is too stiff. The rest of the characters are perfunctory, especially the friends. There is a sub-plot involving a corrupt cop (Ajay, solid) and a journalist ( Pradaini , a little conscious) who is trying to bust a drug ring, but even this isn’t effective.

It is mainly the what’s-happening factor – are the events that we are seeing happening for real or are they playing out in Karthik’s head – that keeps us invested in the story. Even the visuals (by Balasubramaniem) aren’t as hallucinatory as the ones we got in Simba, another film where the hero got stoned. Perhaps this was intentional, to keep us guessing, but it robs the film of visual flair.

In the end, despite being structured as a crime thriller and despite the overpowering score by KP, the film feels like a lengthy PSA against taking drugs.