What’s it about a Rs 50 lakh film, Laalo, that’s made Rs 120 cr at the box office, with everybody eager to meet its debut director, Ankit Sakhiya, 29?

Ankit Sakhiya’s Laalo (left, Shruhad Goswami in a still from the film), the biggest Gujarati blockbuster, by far, that drops on Sony LIV, March 6. Pics/By Special Arrangement

Frankly, I haven’t seen a more dramatic interval block for a movie than Laalo – Krishna Sadaa Sahaayate (2025); by far the highest grossing Gujarati film, ever (that drops on Sony LIV, March 6).

Forget hook/cliffhanger, the movie altogether transitions to an unrelated genre at its mid-point! 

Up until then, Laalo’s a darkish, sole-character-driven survival drama, about an alcoholic autorickshaw driver, stuck for days without food and water, inside an isolated farmhouse that there’s somehow no way to escape from. Think of it as a semi-rural version of Vikramaditya Motwane’s Rajkummar Rao starrer, Trapped (2016), if you may. It’s believable. Contrary to popular perception — while India is indeed the world’s most populous nation — in terms of density of population, it doesn’t even figure in the world’s top ten.

There are enough stretches of uninhabited land, even right outside cities that if you’re holed up in a box — you may never find help to get out of! However, as the timeline hits 1:14 in this two-hours, 15 minutes’ film, Lord Krishna manifests........

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