Don't Trouble The Trouble, produced by Shobu Yarlagadda, Prasad Devineni, and SS Karthikeya, is presented by SS Rajamouli. In this section, we are going to review the latest BO release.
Story:
Raised as an orphan, ambulance driver Suri (Fahadh Faasil) is an obsessive gambler who cons everyone for money. After a wager backfires with Old City don-politician Aslam (Mahesh Manjrekar), Suri gets a two-day ultimatum to pay Rs 25 lakh or die. He then meets Divya (Sara Palekar), a girl claiming she used magic to make her parents vanish. Suri uses her to blackmail her uncle, Pratap (Saurabh Sachdeva), for a ransom. The story unravels how Suri tackles his debt, why money drives him, and whether Divya’s magic is real. It explores the tragedy in Divya's past, and how her growing bond with Suri ultimately shapes their fate.
Performances & Technical Departments:
It's unpopular to say such a thing about FaFa, but he is a terrible miscast for the role. He looks too edgy for the part in many scenes, struggling to strike a soothing chemistry with the child artist. Since the entire film depends on the duo's performance, most of the scenes that were meant to work like magic fall apart. Ssara Palekar looks overaged for the part, actually; a 6-year-old girl should have been cast, while she looks like she is over 9 or 10.
Venkatesh Kakumanu plays Suri's best pal, while Subburaju plays a cop. Mahesh Manjrekar plays pugnacious hooligan whose character is fashioned after typical Hyderabadi goon characters. Saurabh Sachdeva comes across as someone out to kill at least one of the major characters.
The Production Design by Mohan Nath Bingi and Sandeep Suvarna is too generic to be talked about. The sets and the CGI-amplified stretches have an amateurish quality about them. The music by Kaala Bhairava is almost half-hearted; the BGM could have neutered the dullness to a good extent. Brad Francis' cinematography is ordinary.
Post-Mortem:
Writer-director Shashank Yeleti takes on a fantasy comedy-drama where drama is not a footnote. To the extent that he doesn't rush through the film, he is so unlike most of the Telugu filmmakers who have debuted in the last 15 years. It's good that the film doesn't rush to resolve a key mystery about Divya's parents. What makes the child believe that Suri is a genuine magician is an interesting stretch. In his intro scene, Suri creates chaos on the street in an attempt to clear a busy street while driving a heart patient to a hospital in an ambulance; this has a pay-off later that works wonderfully.
The film invests some time on showcasing Suri's reaction to the strange turn of events in his life, but the stretch doesn't bring out the intended hilarity of his Catch 22. The dubbed film-like dialogue delivery only furthers the trouble. Divya tells Suri he is her best friend, but we feel nothing about their evolving bond. The presumed innocence in their performances falls short of evoking a sense of mischief.
DTTT has the smugness of an extravagant spectacle fantasy while it is just a super-celebrity-backed indie children's movie. The intended naughtiness never comes through. The Lord Hanuman element is just there. Suri's whip-smart kameena is an anti-hero who looks jaded as the story progresses.
The character of a Baba (who intentionally or otherwise comes across as a lookalike of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev) was designed for the amusement of children. The situational comedy is clever in fits and starts. Yet, the drama doesn't come together. SS Kanchi developed the script, while Hamza Ali co-wrote the screenplay.
Closing Remarks:
Don’t Trouble the Trouble aims for a mischievous fantasy adventure but rarely finds the emotional spark it needs. Fahadh Faasil feels miscast, while the central bond with Divya lacks warmth. Despite a few clever ideas, amusing stretches and patient storytelling, the generic visuals, muted comedy and underwhelming drama leave the film orphaned.
