Two childhood friends and their college circle live an ordinary campus life until a casual bet between them sets off a chain of well-planned murders. As bodies turn up, vengeance and deception spread through the group and everyone connected to the wager becomes a suspect. Inspector Chudasama is left to untangle who among the friends had reason enough to kill.
Toh Lagi Sharat is one of those small Gujarati films that arrived in June 2018 with almost no marketing muscle and slipped past the mainstream conversation, which is a pity because its hook is sharper than its footprint suggests. Writer, editor and director Nitin Vaidya builds the story around a single idea, a throwaway bet between two college friends that hardens into a run of planned murders, and lets the ensemble do the rest. The bet-to-body-count structure is closer to a campus whodunit than to the family drama or comedy that usually defines the industry's output, and that ambition is the film's most interesting feature.
Vaidya spreads the load across a large cast, with Hardika Joshi, Priyank Gajjar and Ronit Vaidya anchoring the younger set and Hitesh Raval's Inspector Chudasama holding the procedural thread. Shot in 2.39 scope by Arvind Sinh Puvar, it reaches for a bigger visual frame than its budget, and the mystery keeps enough suspects in play to hold curiosity through a runtime that crosses two hours and seventeen minutes. The comic beats sit uneasily beside the murder plot, a tonal split the film never fully resolves.
Honesty matters here, so it should be said that Toh Lagi Sharat drew little to no professional critical coverage, and its high IMDb figure rests on a very small pool of votes rather than a broad consensus. Judge it as a scrappy, locally made ensemble mystery rather than a polished thriller and it earns its watch, mostly for a plot idea that deserved a wider audience than it found.
Verdict
A low-profile Gujarati ensemble mystery with a smarter premise than its reach, worth a look if you forgive its rough edges.
What works
- A sharp bet-to-murder hook
- Large ensemble whodunit cast
- Scope cinematography above its budget
- Keeps several suspects in play
What holds it back
- Comedy and murder tones clash
- Runtime runs long for the story
- Almost no critical coverage exists
- High IMDb score rests on few votes
Cast & crew
Writers: Nitin Vaidya
Cast: Hardika Joshi (Seema), Priyank Gajjar (Gaurav), Ronit Vaidya (Vijay), Hitesh Raval (Inspector Chudasama), Jignesh Modi (Prof Bhindi), Nitin Vaidya (Baadshah)
Producers: Navin Productions; Rahul Vaidya, Ronit Vaidya (co-producers)
Watch the trailer
Play the official trailer on YouTubeMore Comedy Gujarati films
Frequently asked
Is Toh Lagi Sharat worth watching?
A low-profile Gujarati ensemble mystery with a smarter premise than its reach, worth a look if you forgive its rough edges. Kevu Che rates it 3 out of 5.
What is Toh Lagi Sharat about?
Two childhood friends and their college circle live an ordinary campus life until a casual bet between them sets off a chain of well-planned murders. As bodies turn up, vengeance and deception spread through the group and everyone connected to the wager becomes a suspect. Inspector Chudasama is left to untangle who among the friends had reason enough to kill.
What is the IMDb rating of Toh Lagi Sharat?
Toh Lagi Sharat (2018) holds an IMDb rating of 8.8 out of 10 from 55 votes.