Vvann – Force of the Forest – Force of Entertainment! PK Verdict: Just Silver 2.5 ⭐️

Vvann – Force of the Forest – Force of Entertainment!

When TVF meets Balaji, you expect the writing to be the strongest force in the film. Unfortunately, in Vvann, even the entertainment feels forced.

Deepak Kumar Mishra, the man behind TVF favourites Permanent Roommates and Panchayat, makes his feature-film directorial debut with Vvann – Force of the Forest. With TVF and Balaji Telefilms coming together, there is an obvious expectation that the strengths of both worlds might complement each other. They do meet, but they just never quite merge.

You can spot the TVF sensibilities in one corner and the Balaji template in another. At times, they coexist reasonably well; at others, the film feels like two different creative universes negotiating screen space.

Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia make for a believable pairing, and their chemistry works better than the material around them. Sidharth brings a certain ease and restraint to his character, while Tamannaah fits comfortably into the film’s world and holds her own in the quieter moments. Their chemistry feels natural rather than manufactured, which helps the emotional portions land better. Neither performance is the problem here; both actors do what the material demands, even when the screenplay doesn’t give them enough to work with.

The problem begins when the film starts trying too hard to be funny.

Sulabh Arya and Maniesh Paul are initially welcome additions, but their sequences gradually become the cinematic equivalent of someone refusing to stop telling a joke that only worked the first time. A significant chunk of their comedy later feels forced, built around dated gags and situations that contribute little to the actual story. Remove several of these sequences and you could probably save around 20 minutes without taking anything meaningful away from the plot.

The first half makes you feel that there is something here and is easily the more promising portion of the film.

The opening establishes the world and its central conflict effectively. The agenda of gradual destruction of the forest, and the politics surrounding it, provide the film with a reasonably interesting foundation. The writing keeps you engaged and, for a while, Vvann appears to know exactly what kind of story it wants to tell.

Unfortunately, the presentation is frequently a sore point — quite literally at times. The VFX and songs are particularly hard on the eyes, and the special effects never establish a consistent visual language. Still, the first half manages to keep the curiosity alive.

The film’s biggest problem is that its second half loses the very thing its first half had: direction.

Is it a horror comedy? A folklore-driven fantasy? A mystery? A social drama? The answer seems to be: yes.

Experimentation isn’t the issue. The problem is that these genres don’t always feel organically stitched together. The film begins to resemble a collection of short sequences connected by plot rather than a cohesive feature.

Sunil Grover’s villain is another example of this tonal confusion. His performance is loud and caricaturish, but the character never acquires the menace or weight required to become a genuinely compelling antagonist. Instead, he remains another negative shade in a film already struggling to establish its own identity.

The supporting cast does considerably better than the screenplay allows them to, with their sheer presence. Anup Soni, Shweta Tiwari and Avatar Gill bring credibility to their respective roles. The lead cast also does their part well, particularly Sidharth and Tamannaah, whose chemistry remains one of the more convincing aspects of the film.

The issue is rarely the actors. It is the situations they are placed in.Even good performances  struggle when the screenplay keeps changing the rules of the world around them.

The technical aspects are inconsistent throughout. The VFX and AI-generated elements frequently look undercooked, and the lack of consistency makes some sequences noticeably artificial. There are moments where the film’s visual effects don’t appear to have received the same attention as the ambition behind them. The music, meanwhile, is largely forgettable. And that may ultimately be the fate of the film itself.

The most intriguing part of Vvann is perhaps the combination of TVF and Balaji Telefilms. With TVF’s reputation for grounded, character-driven writing and Balaji’s crux of entertainment, the combination could have produced something interesting.

My expectations going in were modest. But TVF’s involvement naturally created some hope that the writing would elevate the material.

It doesn’t.

Vvann – Force of the Forest has the ingredients for an entertaining genre-bender: a promising premise, a capable cast, an interesting rural setting, folklore, politics, mystery and comedy.

But ingredients aren’t a meal.

Vvann  ends up becoming the Force of Entertainment.

PK Verdict: Just Silver — 2.5 ⭐️s