Don’t Trouble the Trouble shows the life Suri, played by Fahadh Faasil, a small-time street magician and con artist in Hyderabad, who scrapes together a living through petty scams and low-end magic shows. His world changes when he encounters Divya, played by Ssara Palekar, a young girl who possesses genuine supernatural abilities. What begins as an accidental encounter turns into something neither of them expected when Suri discovers that Divya’s powers are real and spiral out of control whenever she is angry.

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Fahadh Faasil is the best thing about the film, which is both a compliment and a criticism. It is a compliment because his performance is sincere, committed and technically impressive, particularly given that he is performing entirely in Telugu, a language he does not think in.

It is a criticism because an actor of Fahadh’s calibre should not be the only reason to watch a film backed by Arka Media Works and presented by SS Rajamouli. The character of Suri, while likeable, does not push Fahadh into the kind of morally complex, emotionally demanding territory that produced his best work in his career. He should have been great. The difference is in the writing, not the acting.

Ssara Palekar is the film’s discovery. She is natural, unforced and entirely unselfconscious in front of the camera. She does not act like a child actress performing for adults. She acts like a child who happens to be in a film

Rest of the cast: Saurabh Sachdeva, Subbaraju, Venkatesh Kakumanu and Mahesh Manjrekar are largely under-utilised and outright wasted.

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The core problem with Don’t Trouble the Trouble is its rhythm. A fantasy film about a con artist and a magical child needs to move like a magic show: setup, misdirection, reveal, delight. The audience needs to feel, every few minutes, that something unexpected is about to happen. That anticipation is what keeps whimsy alive. Without it, whimsy becomes waiting. And waiting, no matter how pretty the frame or how sincere the actor, is the enemy of fantasy.

Yeleti’s screenplay does not understand this. It sets up its world patiently, which is fine. It introduces its characters carefully, which is admirable. But once the pieces are in place, the film does not know how to play with them. The scenes between Suri and Divya repeat the same emotional note, tenderness, without variation. And the comedy, which should be the film’s oxygen given its genre, is written as though humour is something that happens when you are not looking rather than something that is crafted, timed and delivered with precision.

The result is a film that feels longer than its runtime. There is not enough happening per minute to justify the time the film demands.

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Fahadh Faasil in a still from the film Don’t Trouble the Trouble

Kaala Bhairava’s music, which was supposed to be one of the film’s genuine strengths, is a letdown. His background score tries to find a tenderness that the screenplay often misses but lacks to do so.

Brad Francis’s cinematography is clean and polished, capturing Hyderabad’s streets and interiors with a warmth that suits the film’s tone. The visual effects, which are central to a fantasy film of this kind, are competent but not spectacular. They do the job without drawing attention to themselves, which for a mid-budget fantasy is probably the right approach.

Praveen Anthony’s editing is the most problematic technical element. The runtime of 2 hours and 38 minutes is at least 20 minutes too long. Tighter cuts in the second half, particularly in the scenes between the police station sequence and the climax, would have significantly improved the film’s momentum.

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Production design by Mohan Nath Bingi and Sandeep Suvarna is solid, creating a Hyderabad that feels lived in rather than constructed.

Don’t Trouble the Trouble is a film of good intentions that could not find the execution to match them. The concept is promising. Fahadh Faasil’s commitment to performing in Telugu is admirable and his sincerity is never in question. Ssara Palekar is a genuine find who will have a long career if she is given the right roles. Kaala Bhairava’s music is lovely. And there are individual scenes, particularly in the first half, that show what the film could have been if the screenplay had found its rhythm.

But the sluggish pacing, the emotionally distant second half, the underwritten antagonist, the humour that rarely lands and the overall inability to convert a strong premise into a sustained cinematic experience leave the film short of what its pedigree promised. It is not a disaster, arguably worse for an actor making his debut as a solo lead in an industry: forgettable.

Don’t Trouble the Trouble movie director: Shashank Yeleti

Don’t Trouble the Trouble movie cast and crew: Fahadh Faasil, Ssara Palekar, Kaala Bhairava

Don’t Trouble the Trouble movie ratings: 2/5