A coastal village that gets its name from all the bloodbath and brutality it has witnessed over many decades and generations. A reformed man who has possibly transcended mortality in pursuit of righteousness. These are some strong vignettes of a mythical tale, rooted in its larger-than-life elements. Koratala Siva sets up the foundation for a great spectacle this way, except his filmmaking style is barely in sync with the potential of his material, and that becomes the biggest undoing of Devara. The director clearly has the ambitions for an epic-scale narrative, but the writing doesn’t match what he is aiming for in the film. It’s these contrasting elements that let it down.
The writing in the latest Jr NTR starrer fails on multiple levels. Koratala Siva brings up an interesting conflict point where the protagonist Devara, initially shown as having a guilty conscience about how he is taking forward the legacy of his forefathers, eventually grows a moral backbone after a revelation and decides to take the right path, risking his own life. However, this plot point isn’t woven well enough in the post-interval portions. Siva also struggles to establish a universe with well-rounded characters, where each of them could add to the narrative in some way.
The characters played by Murali Sharma and Abhimanyu Singh walk in and out of the narrative as if on a whim. Devara also reminds how integral a good antagonist figure remains to a great tale about heroism; Saif Ali Khan’s Bhairaa, despite the actor’s earnest performance, remains a generic bad guy. Besides adding to the glamour quotient, Janhvi Kapoor is also, strangely, used for comic relief. Her character has absolutely nothing to do with the central plot, even though it’s admittedly fun to see her obsess so hysterically about her beloved’s masculinity.
Jr NTR manages to give a distinct flair to Devara and Vara, the father-son duo who look similar but act different in every way possible. However, Vara’s character remains half-baked, with the director leaving us to figure out his true intentions only in the final act (a twist that does more harm than good).
More importantly, except for the hero-elevation moments, there isn’t any impactful visual styling in Devara. Outside of the action set pieces, the shot-taking is staggeringly dull. At one point, a character who dives into the sea in search of something miniscule is shocked to find a bunch of skeletons facing him.
It could have been staged as a strong visual of horror and intrigue, but the director fails to build the moment. When Prakash Raj’s character tells the story of Devara to a cop, the framing of this moment, where a mythical tale is unravelled, is shockingly flat. There is another potentially epic sequence where two brave men engage in hand-to-hand combat at night and keep at it until the sunrise. It’s a monumental idea on paper that barely makes an impact on screen.
And this happens consistently, where you find the makers coming up short in terms of building an atmosphere of tension or intrigue through the imagery. All these factors, when combined, make Devara a bland movie-watching experience. To their credit, the director and the cinematographer Rathnavelu manage to capture a few interesting visuals, although these are few and far between. It’s Anirudh Ravichander’s background score, particularly the many variations of the ‘Fear Song’ theme, that elevate even the more ordinary of scenes and bring some fun to the proceedings.
The interval block is the only segment where you feel the true joy of a hero-worshipping vehicle; almost everything works here, from Jr NTR’s intense energy in his action moves to the top-angle shot of a horde of assassins slowly inching up towards Devara, where they appear like creepy sea reptiles. The rest of the film lacks the same kind of vision and energy.
Again, it’s a pity because writer Koratala Siva incorporates some good conceits into his story. For example, the idea of fear being used to have a vigil on the wrongdoings, to keep evil at bay always, is interesting, and that of a fearless army with no conscience or thoughts of their own strikes a chord with its visceral. Similarly, the conceit of a criminal protecting the law-abiding man at one point, going against his own tribe once he realises the folly of his deeds, is powerful imagery that’s well realised on screen. But Devara is not consistent in this emotional energy.
Devara also chooses to go for a cliffhanger awkwardly similar to Baahubali: The Beginning. There is a major revelation about the motivations of a character, changing our entire perspective of the events that unfold in the second half. But here, the writer forgets about a crucial aspect—they never build up the loyalty of a character well enough to shock us with their betrayal. So when the moment arrives, it leaves us more befuddled than amazed. It’s minor missteps like these, existing in plenty, that makes Devara a major misfire.
Devara
Cast: Jr NTR, Saif Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, Shine Tom Chacko, Prakash Raj
Director: Koratala Siva