Devara - Part 1 Review

In the way of most folk stories, Devara's is narrated by an old man as he stares into the ocean with a faraway look. Listening to the narration of Singappa (Prakash Raj) is cop Siva (Ajay), his buddies, and ostensibly us, the audience. Every time the film circles back to the narration setting, Siva appears to be gobbling up the story, stunned or curious or at the very least interested in the story's protagonist, Devara (N T Rama Rao Jr), a pirate-turned-vigilante of mythical strength. Siva is supposed to be reflecting our feelings, but rather he is a reminder of all that eludes us as we search for any crumb of novelty, emotional depth or even entertainment in Koratala Siva's bland action-drama which, to make matters worse, also jumps on the maddening trend of two-part saga films.

Growing up in Erra Samudram, a coastal region steeped in the legacy of fierce warrior tribes, Devara grapples with the uncomfortable use of his talents and those of the village's young men as pirates-for-hire. His uneasiness comes to a head after a village boy dies in an ambush, and the ammunition used is revealed to be that his friends and he helped smuggle into the country. Determined to sever ties with the smugglers, Devara faces resistance from his brother-in-arms, Bhaira (Saif Ali Khan). Thus begins a tedious cold war, where Devara becomes a vigilante while Bhaira seethes with rage and plots their return to an illicit life.

Koratala Siva's film fancies itself a treatise on the role of fear as a hero's weapon. Instead of uniting the masses with courage, Siva has Devara instill fear among the people to keep the villains at bay. Even years after his disappearance, the echo of his blood-soaked threats seems to deter potential wrongdoers from the shores of Erra Samudram. The film clings to this theme with a fervour that borders on desperation. But is this truly a novel idea? Vigilante heroes leading through fear are a dime a dozen in mainstream Telugu cinema (think Nijam, Sarrainodu, Bharateeyudu), and the predictable action sequences only pile on.

The film takes great lengths to craft the fictional world of Erra Samudram - a remote cluster of four seafaring villages - but much of it serves as mere backdrop for fights and songs. Consider the ritual of "Ayudha Pooja", supposedly centered around a local deity represented by a mound of weapons. An intriguing premise, one might argue. Yet, all we witness is this "pooja" serving as a stage for formulaic wrestling matches, where the victor gets to take the deity home. A marriage scene turns into an impromptu dance. Even the film's opening sequence is an elaborate setup for a gratuitous chase scene in the urban sprawl of old Bombay, in search of a gangster named "Yethi". By the end of the film, though, he is forgotten like the McGuffinian ghost he is.

The film's ability to be excruciatingly formulaic while simulating the appearance of novelty is remarkable. Tropes abound masked by the thinnest of substitutions. Instead of warring factions in Sumos kicking up in dust in Kaddappa (like the films of the 2000s), here are tribes in boats fighting in murky waters. Devara performs similar heroic feats of strength - only, this time instead of leaping up on a bike or dragging an truck, he "rides" a shark and tugs a boat. These tropes, of course, are the lifeblood of a massy hero vehicle. But whether it is a dusty ring match during an Ayudha Pooja or a much-hyped but laughably underwhelming underwater fight sequence, Devara's treatment of these mainstream tropes will bore you to the edge of sleep.

One glaring reason for the film's humourless rigidity is its waxy, single-emotion characters. Devara is the one with righteous fury; his son, Vara (also NTR Jr), is the meek one. Bhaira is never not fuming or clenching. On the rare occasion that any character displays nuance or a change of heart, like Devara does when he sees his comrades massacring coast guard officers, the scenes are rushed, drama sacrificed for action. Swords always trump dialogues, and as a result the film often feels disjointed and drained of its lifeblood.

The women characters in the movie are an embarassment even by mainstream cinema standards. Thanga (Jahnvi Kapoor), the village belle, talks only about finding the right man to marry, heaving her bosom every time she spots Vara doing something heroic. The leery male gaze lingers over her every moment she's on screen, taunted by the eternal struggle of her wispy saree to cover her exaggerated curves as she bathes, lies down or bends over.

If there was any justice in this world, it might have been Prakash Raj playing the Bhaira, but instead he gets shoved into the role of Old Man Narrator and Hero's Hype Man as Singappa. Instead Saif Ali Khan plays Bhaira with a wooden expression and a gravelly voice that reminds you of radio static.

Janhvi Kapoor's Telugu debut was touted as a sort of homecoming for her in lieu of her mother's illustrious Telugu film career. But her self-conscious performance is just as stultified and uncharming as that of Saif.

So it falls, almost by default, on Tarak's shoulders. And what hefty shoulders they are - frozen so high up his neck, he looks out of place in any scene that isn't a fight, which, lucky for him, isn't very often - to carry the movie. Suffice to say, he never quite hits the emotional peaks of his RRR performance, although the writing may be much to blame for that.

Devara is saved largely by the strong technicals - whether it is the VFX shark, or Anirudh's pumping background score, or R Rathnavelu's restrained yet beautiful cinematography. It is marginally more watchable than Koratala Siva's last film, the much-panned Acharya, which was coincidentally also set in a fictitious tribal village, created through elaborate sets that never get their money's worth of use. Between his self-referential films, their bland, preachy dialogues, their decorative lamp-post women characters, and their "North Indian Villain", Koratala Siva seems to be stuck in a tired pattern of storytelling that one can only hope he breaks out of for Part 2 of this tale.