‘Devara: Part 1’ Review: Swimming — and Sinking — in a ‘Baahubali’-sized Lake

Director: Koratala Siva
Writer: Koratala Siva
Cast: NTR Jr., Saif Ali Khan, Prakash Raj, Janhvi Kapoor, Srikanth, Shine Tom Chacko, Narain, Murali Sharma, Abhimanyu Singh
Language: Hindi (dubbed)

Another Friday, another impossibly expensive pan-Indian action spectacle that supplies our admiration and annoyance for the Baahubali franchise. Admiration, because no movie has come close since. Annoyance, because every movie is desperate to come close. To use its language: if Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) and Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017) are the noble and legendary fathers, the rest are either the jealous cousin or the ambitious son. Koratala Siva’s Devara: Part 1 is a hybrid of the two. It blurs the line between imitation and heritage.

The desire to replicate the Baahubali-sized cultural moment is so strong that originality here is, at best, a couple of dapper-looking sharks who’re reduced to visual hero-fodder. These poor sharks are made to leap out of the ocean like errant dolphins in some scenes; in others, they’re treated like underwater horses who seem to be on a vegetarian diet. Between the incompetent crocodiles of Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba and the domesticated Great whites here, it’s hard to imagine a worse phase for apex predators in Indian cinema. Maybe it’s time to unionise. But I digress.

At its most jealous, Devara: Part 1 can best be described as ‘Baahubali on the high seas’. A similar generational father-son tale unfolds in an aquatic setting — a cluster of villages in the Ratnagiri mountains, whose ancestors were warriors who defended pre-independence India’s seas. The skilled inhabitants are now petty smugglers who rob merchant ships in the very waters that were canonised (‘Red Sea’) by the enemies’ blood. Superstar NTR Jr. plays the titular Devara, a leader who grows a conscience and implores his colleagues — including greedy rival chieftain Bhaira (Saif Ali Khan) — to stop smuggling and start fishing. His abrupt transformation happens because he is swayed by a coast guard officer’s patriotic speech that scolds Devara and gang for being disgraceful descendants. It doesn’t take much these days. NTR Jr. also plays Vara, Devara’s timid son who is cursed to carry the mantle after his father disappears as part of a strange vow to ‘invisibly’ protect the Red Sea. Basically, Devara decides to operate like a ghost who haunts anyone that dares to smuggle again.

But, it’s the ghost of S.S. Rajamouli that looms large over the mythmaking. At its most ambitious, Devara: Part 1 is still painfully familiar. A pre-climax twist is not too surprising, given that much of the second half revolves around a missing hero and a reluctant heir. It’s a tiny subversion of the generational themes of mainstream Telugu cinema, but that’s about it. The film ends with its own version of a “Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali?” cliffhanger. When I say “its own version,” I mean that in the loosest way possible. It is almost exactly that; there is no room for translation or adaptation. The silhouette against fire is replaced by a silhouette against water.

The film strives to be its own person by slipping in philosophies and subplots about fear, communism and divinity. There is some social commentary: Devara, unlike his British-battling ancestors, has to fight internal enemies (and demons) rather than external ones. It’s a mild reflection of a country that’s struggling to find an identity with nobody left to resist. But you can tell that the film doesn’t have much to add beyond that. There’s an annual weapons ritual that tries to pad up the story with elaborate combat and action sequences. There are a lot of day-for-night set pieces on ships and at sea, but only one of them — Devara single-handedly fighting an army on a moonlit beach — stands out. It has that elusive money shot: Devara slashes a man’s throat and the blood squirts out in slow motion to complete the arc of the crescent moon in the sky. After a while, the sight of NTR Jr. shooting through the choppy waves gets repetitive, particularly because his role in RRR (2022) featured smarter aquatic acrobatics.

But, at a narrative level, you wonder why someone as ruthless as Bhaira doesn’t just hold Devara’s family hostage to lure him out of hiding. He trains an army of youngsters for 12 years to be strong enough to kill a mythical Devara, but he could have just pushed Devara’s mother or sister off a cliff instead. That’s the film’s tone. Devara also has a signature move — he slashes an ‘X’ into the flesh of potential smugglers and future corpses. It looks cool, but it doesn’t have the punch of the rebels from Inglorious Basterds (2009) carving a swastika into the foreheads of Nazi soldiers. Perhaps it’s a new-age Twitter plug, or perhaps it’s a nod to the missing X factor of this film.

Of the performances, Saif Ali Khan isn’t given much to work with. Bhaira scowls and growls, but it’s a waste of an actor who’s given Hindi cinema some of its most cunning villains. There’s no denying that NTR Jr. has the physicality and aura to carry off his double role. He’s an agile dancer and smooth mover, but the film looks lost and insecure without (two of) him. The plot reverse-engineers his presence into every frame, as a result of which his intro and re-intro moments don’t hit as hard as they should. Anirudh Ravichander’s background score — a stylish and Jawan-inspired electro-heavy series of riffs — does more for the few NTR mass moments than the screenplay or the cinematography.

Speaking of the writing, Devara: Part 1 unfolds as a flashback narrated by a village veteran (Prakash Raj) to an abnormally patient Mumbai cop with plenty of time on his hands. He arrives in search of a drug lord before the 1996 Cricket World Cup, but sits down to listen to the old man instead. I often wonder how these flashbacks are so detailed. How does the aged storyteller, for example, narrate a song like ‘Chuttamalle’, where an attractive young woman (Janhvi Kapoor) imagines herself seducing the man she lusts after? Does he go: “Then she danced around him with wet hair…”? How does the old man know so much? Was he a compulsive voyeur? Does the listener not feel awkward? I digress again.

But, if you think about it, the entire film is a digression of sorts. The cop is still listening — job be damned — especially to the part about a #JusticeForSharks campaign that may or may not happen in Devara: Part 2.