‘The Vvaan: Force of the Forest’ movie review: Sidharth Malhotra slogs in a lopsided eco-thriller

What happens when the custodians of ecological preservation form a corrupt alliance with political forces in the name of progress? Arunabh Kumar and Ekta Kapoor combine to present the dialectic between ecological conservation and modernisation, wrapped in a glossy, high-pitched divine intervention, for a mass audience that, these days, looks South for grand mytho-mystical experiences.

When Rishi (Sidharth Malhotra), a rational professional, returns to his ancestral village with his wife Mamta (Tamannaah Bhatia) to sell off his inherited land, he is sucked into a raging debate. Led by the double-faced Deepak (Sunil Grover), those aligned with the development agenda offer a better rate because they want to build a road through the forest to reduce travel time to city infrastructure. In contrast, the traditionalists, including his well-meaning brother Shashi (Anup Soni) and bitter sister-in-law (Shweta Tiwari), don’t want to upset the forest’s reigning deity and invite her curse. Because of a past incident, Rishi has lost faith in the goddess, but Mamta remains devoted. When Rishi ignores the sacred decree forbidding entry into the forest after sunset, fury breaks loose as we gradually discover that beneath the supernatural lies a timely message: reneging on a pact with nature can unleash self-seeking dark forces. Drawing from folklore, it reminds us that the ruler has a role to protect nature and what happens when the custodian goes corrupt.

Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia in ‘The Vvaan: Force of the Forest’
| Photo Credit:
Balaji Motion Pictures

While the premise is prescient, the execution feels like a creative compromise, with the storytelling and world-building tilting toward the Balaji aesthetic. Directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra of Panchayat fame, the heightened melodrama and overtly stylised narrative tropes of television soap operas don’t match TVF’s signature grounded storytelling. While contemporary survival thrillers like Kaala Paani cast nature’s ire as a terrifying, formless entity, here Kumar and Mishra give it a literal, tangible silhouette. However, the narrative operates on a somewhat condescending premise, implying religious devotion as intellectual passivity. Unlike the symmetrical alignment of the repeating consonants in its title, the intrinsic narrative logic doesn’t hold.

Sidharth fits into the archetype of the ‘chosen one’ in a screenplay that doesn’t demand any real complexity from its lead. The versatile Sunil Grover plays the mercurial Deepak rather straight. A little more colour to suit the tone of storytelling would have helped. Tamaanah’s exaggerated emotional output suits the Balaji blueprint. Anup is believable as ever. It is good to see Shweta back in the household politics, and she hasn’t lost her grip on the format.

Maniesh Paul and Sidharth Malhotra in ‘The Vvaan: Force of the Forest’ 
| Photo Credit:
Balaji Motion Pictures

The film’s structural predictability stems from a highly repetitive narrative flow. An eerie encounter is followed closely by a Chhath Puja ritual, which is then immediately undercut by a stale, recycled Maniesh Paul-Sulbha Arya ghost gag. It feels like a desperate trend-and-target-audience-tapping exercise rather than a compelling story. This rapid alternation between staged sacred solemnity and outdated sitcom humour makes the storytelling aggressively cyclical. There are hints of a base where development and devotion aren’t as simple as yes and no, but the makers don’t want to enter the jungle of moral ambiguity.

By trapping the audience in this predictable loop of scare-laugh-reset, the screenplay fails to build toward a cogent climax. Then all of a sudden, the makers realise they are running out of time and drop whatever surprises they have in the kitty.

The world-building falters further because of an artificial mise-en-scène and music. The forest lacks organic texture, presenting a sanitised, curated look akin to an amusement park with ambient lighting, and the acoustic design betrays itself through an obvious arrangement of stock sound effects.

By keeping the audience ahead of the protagonist, the narrative introduces an irritating drag; we anticipate the fallout of Rishi’s premonitions a full hour before he finally understands the divine design and musters the agency to act on them.

The Vvaan: Force of the Forest is currently running in theatres.