Dharma is stuck in a rut with his negative and lonely lifestyle and spends each day in the comfort of his loneliness. A pup named Charlie who is naughty and energetic which is a complete contrast with the Dharma’s character enters his life and gives him a new perspective towards it.

Original Title: 777 ಚಾರ್ಲಿ

Original Language: Kannada (dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam)

★★ 

Rewatched on 10 Jun 2022

I’m a massive Rakshit Shetty fan and this was a film I was really looking forward to for a year or two at this point. It’s actually quite disheartening for me to say that this film did not live up to the hype and the years of waiting. Before I get into the large list of negatives, I will try to encapsulate what I liked. I did like a few aspects of the film. This film was really a tale of two halves. The first half was a genuinely fun, entertaining, and emotionally resonant film. That’s the most shocking part for me. The first half is almost a complete film on its own and would be a very enjoyable experience for most. It has so much heart and the message is very clear. It has really great comedic moments and I was absolutely blown away by the versatility shown by Raj B Shetty to go from GGVV to this. His character is definitely the highlight of the film and provided the most comic relief. The dog itself is very likable. Rakshit also acts to his heart’s content, sometimes a bit too much but he isn’t really the problem with the film. For me, the main issue lies in the second half. It is terribly paced, making it exhaustingly boring and extremely dull. On paper, it should be a great idea what they did in the second half, but it was 45 minutes to an hour too long. If they had shortened that bit to a 20-minute montage, on top of the great first half, I would rate this film quite highly but unfortunately, the second ‘half’ (post-interval) drags for 1.5 hours and it is absolute torture at times. Full of cliches and drawn-out exaggerated musical sequences, it felt like an onslaught of neverending pandering to all communities in India to generate an almost artificial ‘pan-India’ appeal. The creators failed to understand that the Kannada films that did gain national appeal are so authentically Kannadiga and rooted in Kannada culture (Ulidavaru Kandanthe, GGVV, KGF, etc). I would really not recommend this film to anyone unless you’re really a dog lover because even its messages of grief and loss are washed over by the extremely drawn-out plot.