My face hurts. Like, physically hurts. My cheeks are sore from smiling so much and my ribs ache from laughing. I think I pulled something. It’s 2:15 AM and I’m just lying here on my couch, the Netflix menu glowing on the TV, and my brain is just… static. Bheeshma. What did I just watch?
Honestly, I just clicked on it because the poster looked… loud. And I was scrolling through Netflix for like, an hour, and my thumb was getting tired, so I just went with it. Big mistake? No. A beautiful, chaotic mistake. I started it and my cat, Biscuit, was on my lap, and for the first twenty minutes, I was just petting her, thinking, “Okay, this is fine. This is a standard Telugu movie.” The hero, Nithiin, is this guy who just wants a girlfriend. Relatable. He’s failing at it. Also relatable. He’s got this weird job where he’s a meme creator or something? I don’t know, I was distracted by a notification on my phone and missed that part.
And then it happens. The introduction. It’s not an introduction, it’s an event. The slow-motion walk. The wind blowing his hair even though he’s indoors. The background music is just this epic, booming chorus screaming “BHEESHMA!” and I literally sat up so fast Biscuit launched off my lap and gave me a death stare. I was leaning forward, mouth open, like a complete idiot. Was it cool? In that moment, at 1 AM on a Tuesday, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life. But now, typing this… was it actually kind of dumb? I don't know. The line is so blurry.
There’s this one scene that’s just burned into my retinas. He’s in this big office, and Rashmika Mandanna—oh my god, she’s so cute it should be illegal—is explaining this whole agricultural empire. And she says, with a completely straight face, “This is the Bheeshma project. Our goal is 100% organic farming.” And he just stands there, looking cool, and the name clicks. His name is Bheeshma. The project is Bheeshma. It’s so on-the-nose it’s brilliant. It’s like the writer just gave up on subtlety and I am so here for it. It’s stuck in my head because it’s so monumentally ridiculous but it’s the entire PLOT. The movie’s identity rests on this one pun.
It reminded me of my uncle, the one who tried to get into organic farming back in the day. He bought this tiny patch of land behind our house and spent a fortune on special cow dung and some ancient-looking seeds. He’d talk for hours about the "purity of the soil" and how "modern poison is killing us." He grew one single, misshapen tomato. He was so proud of it. He took a hundred photos. Then a crow ate it. He never spoke of organic farming again. Anyway.
The villain. The VILLAIN. This guy who is always, always eating an apple. And he has these henchmen who are about as threatening as a pack of wet paper towels. They try to be intimidating, but they’re constantly tripping over things or getting beaten up by random objects. I covered my eyes at one point, not because it was scary, but because the cringe was so potent I thought it might physically hurt me. But I was peeking through my fingers, obviously. And the deaths! They’re so… creative. One guy gets taken out by a falling coconut. A COCONUT. I paused the movie right then and just sat in silence for a full minute. Was I dreaming? I had to get up and get a glass of water just to recalibrate my brain.
The middle of the movie kind of drags, I’m not gonna lie. It’s a lot of back and forth, a lot of songs that come out of nowhere (which I loved, don’t get me wrong), and a lot of Rashmika being adorable while Nithiin tries to fail his way into her heart. I almost dozed off. The couch was just too comfortable. But then BAM, another scene of absolute madness would happen and I’d be wide awake again. It’s a rollercoaster designed by someone who has had way too much coffee.
I thought I loved the romance, but now that I’m typing this... was it actually kind of dumb? Their entire relationship is based on a series of misunderstandings and coincidences so wild they’d make a soap opera writer blush. He lies, she finds out, he does a silly dance, she forgives him. Repeat. But honestly, when they were on screen together, I didn’t care. It just worked. The energy was infectious. It’s like eating a whole tub of ice cream. You know it’s not good for you, but in the moment, it’s pure happiness.
So yeah. I watched it at home. On my couch. With my cat judging me from the floor. I paused it to pee, to get water, to check if that weird noise outside was a raccoon or just the wind. This is how we watch movies now. It’s not a pristine, dark theater. It’s messy. It’s real. And a movie like Bheeshma, it’s perfect for that. It doesn’t demand your full, undivided attention. It just screams at you until you give in.
My brain is fried. I feel like I just mainlined pure, uncut entertainment. I don’t know if it was good. I don’t know if it was bad. I just know I had fun. A lot of fun.
7/10. Maybe. Don't ask me tomorrow.
-Ishaan - solid