Brahmastra Movie Review

Ahead of the release ofBrahmastra, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and the film’s director Ayan Mukerji flew to Ujjai to offer prayers at the Mahakaleshwar temple. A heap of protestors reached the temple and started raising slogans against the stars and Brahmastra. As a result, Ranbir and Alia had to skip the Sandhya Aarti at the Mahakaleshwar temple. The local cops rushed to the spot to bring the situation under control. Ayan Mukerji reached the temple and offered prayers while Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt had to stay away due to the heat of the protestors and security reasons.

#BoycottBrahmastra is still trending across the social media from a month. The advance sales for Brahmastra have been outstanding across the country. The film releases on September 9th in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam languages. Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and Fox Star Studios are the producers. Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna and Mouni Roy played other important roles.

#BoycottBrahmastra was trending across the nation for over two months and this worried the makers of the film. With aggressive promotional campaign and a star-studded cast in the film, the pre-release sales and the advance bookings are quite impressive. Bollywood critics and analysts are predicting a Rs 30 crore opening for the film which never happened for a Hindi film post-pandemic. Films like The Kashmir Files, Akhanda and Karthikeya 2 had an edge at the theatrical windows as the films narrated facts about the origin of Indian Gods and their history.

Brahmastra too is all about the superpowers of the Hindu Gods. The film would get an advantage in this aspect if the content is impressive. The quality of the VFX work and the 3D effects will play a crucial role in the success of Brahmastra. With several prominent personalities like Rajamouli promoting the film, it would boost the openings of the film though the result depends on the content.

The real challenge for Brahmastra is that the content should be completely impressive. Else the film will be trolled. There is a talk about nepotism in Bollywood and Karan Johar is the major face of the topic. He is producing Brahmastra and this would turn out to be a disadvantage if the film fails to live up to the expectations. The makers have invested big on the film and Brahmastra should perform exceptionally well in the theatres to reach the breakeven mark. As the film is planned as a trilogy, the first installment should be a money spinner. Else the future of the other installments would land in trouble.

Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt are being trolled for months and their past videos are circulated across the social media circles. The duo like never in the past has been promoting Brahmastra which is also an advantage. At the end of the day, it is the content matters. All the odds will turn into an advantage for the film if the content is impressive. Hope Brahmastra clears the thirst of Hindi cinema and brings back the lost glory.

Delhi High Court has restrained as many as 18 websites from illegally streaming ‘Brahmastra Part One: Shiva’, a film starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in titular roles, after allowing a suit moved by Star India in relation with copyright infringement.

Star India, in its suit, pointed out that it is an industry practice to release the film for theatrical exhibition first and then make it available for viewing on different platforms. The theatrical release of a film is the most important stage as the commercial value of a film depends on the popularity and success it achieves in this period.

“However, the rogue websites in order to make illegal gains make infringing copies and make them available for viewing, downloading, and communication to the public, almost simultaneously with the theatrical release of the film. In the past, infringing copies of several movies produced/distributed by Plaintiff were communicated to the public and made available for viewing and downloading, on various websites, within hours of the theatrical release,” they said.

In the recent order, after considering the arguments of the parties, Justice Jyoti Singh observed the investments made by the Plaintiff (Star India) in the production and promotion of the film, saying the exclusive right vested in it under the provisions of the Copyright Act.

“Defendants No. 1 to 18 and all others acting for and/or on their behalf are restrained from in any manner hosting, streaming, retransmitting, exhibiting, making available for viewing and downloading, providing access to and/or communicating to the public, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, updating and/or sharing on their websites through the Internet or any other platform, the film ‘Brahmastra Part One: Shiva’ and contents related thereto, so as to infringe the Plaintiff’s copyright therein, till the next date of hearing,” the court said.

It was also directed to the Department of Telecommunications and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, to issue necessary notifications calling upon various Internet Service Providers to block access to the websites of the rogue websites.

“There is no gain saying that piracy has to be curbed and needs to be dealt with a heavy hand and injunction against screening of copyrighted content by rogue websites ought to be granted,” the court noted.

“This position is acknowledged and re-affirmed in several decisions and in order to avoid prolixity, I may only allude to two judgments of this court…,” the court said referring various judgements in relation with the matter.