Devara Review - Quite a Boring Tale!

Ashwin Ram

Devara: Part 1 is an action drama starring Jr.NTR, Saif Ali Khan and Jahnvi Kapoor in the lead roles. The film is directed by Koratala Siva and the music is composed by Anirudh.

Premise:

Fictional world set amidst the sea, there are four different clans that form a village. They smuggle consignments from the ships for their livelihood. Understanding the consequences, Jr.NTR orders to not smuggle anymore, which creates a crack in their unity. What happens after this forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The fear concept is inventive to play with, and the reason behind it is also strong enough. But unfortunately, Koratala Siva fails in converting the interesting idea into a worthy screenplay. There are a few mass moments within the action portions to cheer for and the interval block grabs the attention by introducing an unexpected heroic idea. The issue is that the story never takes-off, at least the first half is passable as the progression is sluggish and there are plot-points to move things forward. The latter feels dead from the beginning, with the climax being the only saving grace. In every scene, someone or the other keep on elevating the sea for no reason. Later on, the hype shifts to the ‘Devara’ character as he goes hiding, likewise there is just word building, but there are no efficient scenes to prove so. The later half wastes a lot of time by resetting the world with irrelevant love scenes, some silly jokes and repetitive establishments for the villain. The situations are weak, hence the drama lacks punch and provides no impact. Writing is lazy in many instances, the father-son character names for example, which is ‘Devara’ and ‘Vara’. There are even continuity issues while linking the two different timelines. Poor direction too, the atmosphere actors behave like jokers in some shots. The ending is spineless as there is no clue whatsoever in the lead scene placed as a cliffhanger for the second part.

Performances:

Jr.NTR’s presence is strong, especially in the fight sequences and while delivering powerful dialogues, but he has no big scope to express his dynamic nature with respect to performance. Saif Ali Khan fits well as the baddie, again a flat single-dimensional role. Absolutely no importance for Jahnvi Kapoor in the story, she appears only after the interval and that too only for a song and a couple of scenes. Prakash Raj is more like a flashback orator, as he literally has nothing to do in the main story world. Why cast actors from other industries knowing they can’t speak the language, random dubbing artists have given voices for the entire bunch such as Saif Ali Khan, Shine Tom Chacko, Jahnvi Kapoor, Kalaiyarasan, Narain, etc.

Technicalities:

Hands down Anirudh Ravichandar is the hero of the film, as he has single-handedly carried it with his solid background score, the elevations are somewhat pleasing only because of his work. Pretty good album too, ‘Fear Song’ and ‘Chuttamalle’ are blast in the theatres, also the one bad song ‘Daavudi’ is removed from the movie. Good efforts from cameraman Rathnavelu as the visuals are promising, the scale of the geography is captured and presented neatly. The night shots are well lit and the underwater sequences look crystal clear. Flat editing from Sreekar Prasad, narration is way too straightforward for the order of the day. Stunt choreography is a mixed bag, regular fights are fine but crappy when they decide to go overboard.

Bottomline

Appreciable core thought, but even the delightful visuals and fire music cannot wipe the flaws in its weak writing and sloppy execution. A better outing than ‘Acharya’ from Koratala Siva, but is that enough?

Rating - 2.25/ 5