Laughing Buddha

Laughing Budha is a story of a cop who has to lose weight to save his job. The movie is a lighthearted take on food addiction and subtle commentary on how to treat suspects during interrogation. Govardhan, a foodie, is a constable who is overweight. He loves food. He is good natured. There is a scene where he goes to interrogate a suspect and offers him food, ends up making friends with him and gets what he wants from the suspect. Though this seems outlandish at first, the film presents the reality as a stark contrast where the inspector beats up the suspect until he bleeds. Then comes the time when Govardhan must lose weight to save his job and that throws him off balance. He tries his best to lose weight in 90 days but as we all know, it is impossible to get fit in such a short amount of time. How he deals with this situation forms the rest of the story.

Pramod Shetty as Govardhan was an absolute charmer as the overweight cop. His innocence and his love for food was written beautifully by writer director M. Bharath Raj. Pramod Shetty exudes that kindness and his love for his food and family is evident in every frame. The supporting cast also did an excellent job in bringing the humor quotient and the dialogues by Anirudh Mahesh and Akarsh HP along with Bharath Raj kept the humor quotient subtle and sarcastic without going overboard. It is very easy in these kinds of stories to generate humor via body shaming, and we see none of that low effort humor here. The writing stays dignified and never feels awkward.

The story takes some uninteresting turns and some plot points that are unrealistic, but they are there in service of the story. I did wish the writers spent more time on generating humor via the numerous failed attempts that Govardhan makes. Although his job is at stake, he never really faces strong opposition to his actions at work nor his family.

Laughing Budha is a nice watch with family to sit back and reflect not only on one's food choices but also how we, as a society, treat suspects and undertrials. I recommend watching it.

-YT/@CinephileIndia2023.