The film opens with an idyllic scene that has the protagonist sitting by a gurgling stream as a colourful CGI bird flies around with abandon. That is where a sharp fork in the forest takes the story in a totally different direction to a place where the conventions of a good-versus-evil story take over and hurl us into a corridor of twists and turns that rely on unbridled melodrama for impact. Our hero Sumitranandan - the name is mentioned only is passing - has earned the sobriquet Bandev (Lord of the Jungle) because his personal tree count is as high as 100,000. Haathi Mere Saathi has something similar.
The character he plays is inspired in part by the real-life Jadav Payeng, known as the forest man of India because he took upon himself the mission to plant thousands of trees in Majuli and create an entire reserve forest. The script puts all its eggs in one basket and that basket rides entirely on Rana Daggubati. No matter how messy everything else in Haathi Mere Saathi might seem, the lead actor's fans will find no reason in its dense narrative thickets to feel shortchanged. Along the way, expect some thrills, many spills and an all-out clash of wills over a forest that is in danger of being wiped out. How the preachy, inordinately long Haathi Mere Saathi gets there is the only point of interest that remains.
What the outcome of the confrontation will be is signalled pretty early. It trumpets and bellows its way to a predictable climax.
The film is headlined by Rana Daggubati as a jungle man who single-handedly takes on a battery of people who invade the habitat of his animal friends, a reserve forest in a no-development zone. This is the Hindi version that was shot simultaneously with the Tamil and Telugu ones - Kaadan and Aranya respectively - but six months longer than the other two to land in our midst. It is another matter that the method that writer-director Prabhu Solomon employs to deliver the message is gratuitously high-pitched and completely devoid of nuance.įilmed primarily in Kerala and supposedly set in Chhattisgarh, Haathi Mere Saathi, is streaming on Eros Now. Its essential plea has great relevance and urgency because we live in times of increasing deforestation hastened by myopic government policies and runaway commercial greed. There is no denying that the point that Haathi Mere Saathi makes is absolutely valid. Cast: Rana Daggubati, Pulkit Samrat, Vishwajeet Pradhan, Zoya Hussain and Shriya Pilgaonkar
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