Junior NTR, the grandson of legendary actor Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR), is trying to become a Devara in the 21st century. It’s been six years since he did a solo film on the big screen. After ‘Brahmarishi Vishwamitra’ and ‘Ramayanam’ made as a child actor, some 23 years ago, Junior NTR made his debut as a hero with a double role film ‘Ninni Choodalani’. He also plays a double role in the film. Since its poster has already endorsed it, there should be no problem in discussing it here. This is the fifth film of Jr NTR with a double role. He has played triple roles in the film.
This is writer-turned-director Koratala Siva’s next film after the two-year-old flop ‘Acharya’ starring Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan. Jr NTR is one of the busiest actors in the Telugu film industry. The advance booking of the film has also been encouraging, but the enthusiasm of the audience who came to watch the first show of the film here at 8.30 am in the morning was seen coming to the end after watching this film for about three hours. The film’s story is pretty great too.
Part 1 of the review Devara
This is the story of four villages settled on a mountain located on the coast where the water ships going to the ports pass through the sea. Each village has mastered a different art. At first he protected the king of the region. Then after the escape of the British, the born generation started extracting smuggled goods from the ships coming out of the sea. This is the story of these pirates, their families and the mutual politics of these villages.
While helping a gang of illegal arms smugglers run with the help of the police, Deora one day realizes that the weapons he used to help in smuggling are robbing his village of its happiness. He gets upset. Not his friends. The leader of this opposition group is Bhaira.
The enemies of Devara and Bhaira increase. A plan is made to kill Devra. One day after killing everyone, Devara goes missing. His son Vara continues the story after the interval. His girlfriend Thangam is also there to give a glimpse. The story begins in today’s time when the police starts a special squad to catch a declared terrorist to maintain peace during the Cricket World Cup.
The film ‘Devra Part One’ ends leaving scope for its sequel, but looking at the way this 177-minute film has been made, it does not seem that those who watch it will have much interest in watching its sequel. Just like Prabhas had to end the curse of two-three super flop films after working with Rajamouli, something similar seems to be happening with Jr NTR here. Being in a double role once seen on screen, he is present in almost every frame of the film and this overdose of his own is very heavy on the film. For South cinema, Jr NTR’s stature might seem good, but the audience of Hindi cinema came to see his charisma, which its director Koratala Siva could not show anywhere in the film.
While watching the film, the audience keeps telling before every scene that it is going to happen now and the film also keeps sinking with these critical comments of the audience. Saif Ali Khan’s character is very weak. Something like Villain was not done in his film to make him a terror. Murali Sharma and Abhimanyu Singh will be seen in pivotal roles. Koratala Shiva directs this film which has Prakash Raj in a key role.
They tell the story. The film goes on. The film also stars Janhvi Kapoor. One bathing scene, one song and two to three laugh-out-loud funny scenes. No one would have expected anything more from a film like this. It is to be noted that this role has come to Janhvi after Shraddha Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Rashmika Mandanna refused.
It is the result of Koratala Siva’s complete failure in his direction that in the film ‘Devara Part One’, a legendary art director like Sabu Cyril, a talented editor like A Sreekar Prasad, an imaginative cinematographer like R Ratnavelu and a popular musician like Anirudh Ravichander could not show any charisma to the audience in the theaters. The film ‘Devara Part One’ ends somewhat on the lines of ‘Baahubali One’ and also tries to create suspense like why Kattappa killed Baahubali, but the present of this film is not very good, the future of the sequel is still very far.