Producers- Vedant Jha and Manoj Jha
Director- Pawan Kumar Sharma
Star Cast- Dhirendra Thakur, Falak Khan, Aditya Srivastava, Rajesh Jais, Yashpal Sharma, Smita Gupta, Prafull Jha, Arin Raj and Sweta Dutta
Genre- Social
OTT Platform- ShemarooME OTT
Small, Sweet and topical film!
Rating- ***
Van Rakshak - The Forest Guard is not just a fictional tale inspired by a poor guy called ‘Chiranjilal Chouhan’ from Himachal Pradesh, but it is a sort of reality check for the citizen today which all of us, the human race badly needs at this point of time.
Don’t set out to see the film if all you want is an entertaining pot-boiler of the worst kind but you are keen on watching films based on environment conservation, global warming and what’s more climate change.
Chiranjilal serves as a child labour to feed himself as his family is not able to afford to complete his graduation which was his burning desire to make the ends of the family meet, Chiranjilal becomes a shopkeeper.
Though life is treating him good as he is able to manage his business well , all of a sudden he becomes restless hearing the news of global warming and climate change across the globe he decides join the forest department as forest guard at the age of thirty leaving a lucrative business behind as he is determined to protect wildlife.
During his small tenure as forest guard he manages to wake up people around him and ignites a huge debate on the biggest issue, development v/s nature conservation.
The film is all about the problems which Chiranjilal is forced tom face in his pursuit to save planet from destruction.
Dhirendra Thakur is good as the protagonist Chiranjilal Chouhan and sets out to live his role effortlessly by getting into the skin of his character perfectly.
Aditya Srivastava deserves special mention for his spirited cameo role in the film as Ajay Singh, the training officer for the forest guards who also recruits Chiranjilal Chouhan as one of his cadets
Falak Khan as his silent lover Aanchal Kumari is also good in the film and the way love blossoms between the two is displayed very sweetly.
Yashpal Sharma endears himself in his role as Chiranjilal’s superior officer DFO Dogra when he is posted at a forest, though, like Aditya Srivastava, he also does not have a big scope to perform or leave an impact with his role.
Arin Raj, as kid Churanjilal and Prafull Jha as the young Chiranjilal also leave an impact with their small but effective roles.Music by Balkrishan Sharma is not only lilting to the core but also soothing and traditional while songs by Shubha Mudgal, Hansraj Raghuwanshi, Kuldeep Sharma, Shakti Singh, Diksha Piyush, Suresh Verma etc are worth mentioning.
On the whole, kudos to director Pawan Kumar Sharma for making a small and sweet film which sets out to reminds us of the perils if we do not read the warning soon and make it a point to safeguard and conserve our environment.