Be Shakal Movie (Aruvam) Review: A Unique, Powerful Film

Be Shakal is a Hindi version of the South Indian movie Aruvam starring Siddharth and Catherine Teresa. Aruvam or Be Shakal means apparition. It garnered positive reviews for its story and multiple themes. The story is of a food safety officer fighting against the crime of food adulteration. It turns out to be a twisted tale when the officer dies.

Cast of the movie Be Shakal

• Siddharth (actor): As Jagannathan
• Catherine Tresa: As Jyothi
• Kabir Duhan Singh: As Vikram Jeyara

The Story

Jagannathan, a food safety officer is murdered by a renowned food business owner because he tries to shut down his business on the grounds of food adulteration. The officer possesses his lover Jyothi to stop them from continuing malpractices and take revenge. So, this is the overall story of the Aruvam or Be Shakal movie.

Themes in the movie Be Shakal

South Indian movies are family pack movies, they focus on all the themes equally. They don’t make a particular theme very heavy for the audience. So everybody can enjoy their movies. In Be Shakal movie, romance and drama are the underlying themes. But the major focus of the movie is supernatural elements, Corruption, and Food Adulteration.

Let us see some good and bad aspects of the Be Shakal movie, which will help you decide to watch a movie or not:

The Good

As we are witnessing today, people are encouraging the movie which focuses on reality or we can say as the truth of the society. and the movie plays a great role to bring in that awareness, as discussed in our previous review of the movie Sherni.

We have seen a lot of movies that are based on corruption, out of which very few talk about food adulteration. This is the best part of the movie which stands out. And, makes it different from the rest of the movies.

With that, the cast of this movie is amazing. Each and every actor is true to his/her character. Let it be simplicity and righteousness of Jyothi or the objective and courage of Jagannathan both of them have done an amazing job. Plus the fight scenes and VFX are also realistic. 😄

The songs of the movie are good as well. But you don’t see them in the Hindi version yet. The director of the movie Aruvam has tried to take a risk and presented a realistic theme with a supernatural story.

The Bad

But as said all the risks don’t pay off well, though the theme which has been chosen, is exceptional. The supernatural twist to it is not up to the mark. It could have been better if they might not have killed the hero. This would have spare some of the room for more realistic plot twists.

The expectations seriously increase after how Jagannathan realistically explains the practice of food adulteration and the repercussions of it which will be faced by humans in the long run. But the supernatural elements are really overshadowing the actual theme.

Matlab k baande ko zinda rehte kuch nahi karne diya toh chalo mar kar k he inko khatam hai (You didn’t let me work when I was alive, so let me just die and become a ghost, and then finish you all). 🤦‍♀️

Conclusion

The story of Aruvam is told in an unusual manner. The film could have been more relevant to the topic but with all the multiple themes the makers have incorporated, the movie surely could have been realistic and more engaging. The good point of this film is its use of subtitles in English.

It’s a unique way of storytelling and the movie won’t fail the audience who speak another language. The movie is dubbed in Hindi as well with the name Be Shakal.

The theme of adulterated food has been in the limelight over the last few years. But, not a lot of movies talk about it. In the Be Shakal movie, issue is highlighted but seem to have been overshadowed by the unusual plot twist. This does not justify the objective of the movie. In Aruvam, we get to see the evil consequences of the people involved in food adulteration.

Be Shakal movie is worth a watch at least once to know more about the story and the execution. The thought of the movie is really good but, overall the movie could have been better without its supernatural plot twist.

You can watch the full Be Shakal movie (Hindi) here and Aruvam (Tamil) here.