Bagheera (film)

Bagheera is a 2023 Indian Tamil-language psychological romantic thriller film directed by Adhik Ravichandran and produced by R. V. Bharathan. The film stars Prabhu Deva, Srikanth, Amyra Dastur, and Gayathrie. It revolves around a man who becomes a serial killer hunting women due to an incident from his childhood.

Bagheera was released theatrically on 3 March 2023 to mixed reviews from critics, with Prabhu Deva's performance being praised.

Plot
In 2023, Bagheera is a psychopath who murders multiple girls by disguising himself in different disguises. Inspector Sai Kumar is assigned to investigate one of Bagheera's victims, where the cops find the dead bodies turned into statues. Ramya is a psychology student who conducts a case study on Bagheera. One of the twin brothers tries to commit suicide, but the other one saves him and suggests the app named Bagheera, which reveals that if a girl cheats on their man, he can file a complaint through the app, and Bagheera will kill the girl. Bagheera receives a complaint about Ramya cheating on his boyfriend Ranjith, where he begins to make her love him and disguises himself with another name. Bagheera brings them to a house located in Sri Lanka, where he killed those girls and made them statues. Bagheera also brings Ramya to the same house. A blind man finds a diary written in Braille, where he reads it and hands the diary over to the cops after discovering that the owner of the diary is Bagheera.

In 1999, Murali, Prabhu and Pakru were friends in Coimbatore, who always watched The Jungle Book on TV. Prabhu considered himself as Bagheera and Murali as Mowgli. After Prabhu's mother's death, Murali's parents adopt Prabhu as their son. Murali's father, Ganesan, has a statue factory. Prabhu had a girlfriend, whom he affectionately referred to as Rabbit. While playing with Rabbit, Prabhu sees Swapna with a boy, where she sprays on Prabhu's eyes, and Prabhu loses his eyesight. Due to her father's transfer, Rabbit has to leave the city. Murali is now running the statue factory, where he marries Reshma. Bagheera gets his eyesight after Murali's mother donates her eyes to him. Concurrently, Prabhu learns that Murali committed suicide because Reshma was cheating him. Prabhu goes to kill her, but she escapes with her boyfriend, Rohit. Prabhu goes to a mental asylum, where Ganesan brings him out. With no knowledge about Reshma, Prabhu considers the girls cheating on their boyfriends as Reshma and begins his crusade to finish them.

In the present, Bagheera/Prabhu tries to kill Ramya and ties her to the statue-making machine. Ramya soon starts to divert him by talking to Murali's soul, explaining that she does not know Ranjith and does not cheat on anyone. Bagheera/Prabhu calls Ranjith, who says he stalked her, but she did not accept his love, which is why he complained in the app. Bagheera/Prabhu soon learns that Ramya is none other than Rabbit. Bagheera/Prabhu gets arrested and receives minimum punishment due to mental illness.

Twenty-five years later, Bagheera/Prabhu and Ramya are the parents of a son named Murali. Prabhu learns that Murali is in love with a girl and tells him to call her parents to solve the issue between the lovers. The girl brings her mother, who is none other than Reshma. Prabhu tells his son to leave them for a chat. Prabhu secretly gets a knife and kills Reshma by slashing her throat, thus avenging Murali's death.

Production
The title of the film and the names of a few characters were inspired by the TV series The Jungle Book. In this film, Prabhu is referred to as Bagheera, and his friend Murali is referred to as Mowgli; also, Pakru is referred to as Baloo the bear. Production began before the COVID-19 pandemic. The film's production was halted due to the pandemic, but it resumed after the government granted permission.

Music
The music of the film is composed by Ganesan S.

A remix version of "Pattukottai Ammalu" song from Ranga (1982) is used in the climax.

Theatrical
The film was released theatrically on 3 March 2023.

Home media
The satellite and digital rights were sold to Sun TV Network. The film began streaming on Sun NXT from 31 March 2023.

Reception
Bagheera received mixed reviews from critics. Studioflicks gave 2.8/5 stars and wrote "Bagheera is a tailor-made treat for the teens, and few scenes have the magic, but fails to be a wholesome entertainer." Ashwin Ram of Moviecrow rated 2.5/5 stars and wrote "What could have been a gripping youthful thriller is watered down to be an average flick due to overstuffing things. A focused single track with limited and powerful characterizations alongside the same flashback would have been neater." Prashanth Vallavan of Cinema Express gave 2/5 stars and wrote "While there are moments in Bagheera that massively benefit from such lighthearted treatment, there are sections of the film that are too deliberately filled with logical loopholes and careless writing."

Gopinath Rajendran of The Hindu wrote "What comes as probably the only silver lining is Prabhu Deva for whom Bagheera offers ample scope to perform". Logesh Balachandran of The Times of India gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "Bagheera might have worked if it had been released decades ago, but even then, it's absurd to propagate these kinds of ideas". A critic from Dinamalar gave 1.5/5 stars.