Devara is a pirate living in a fictional(?) village called Ratnagiri along the border of Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu along with other pirates Bhaira, played by Saif Ali Khan, and others. During one of their pirate escapades things go south between Devara and Bhaira setting off a rivalry. Rest of the movie is about what happens to them and their rivalry and what role does Devara's son Vara plays in their relationship.
The movie is all out NTR's movie. He carried the movie on shoulders despite being an insipid and predictable storyline. Screenplay by Koratala Siva suffers terribly in establishing the conflict and elevating the emotion to the right level. Action choreography and some important sequences leading up to the action end up being duds thereby rendering the entire action dull and boring and without a purpose. The movie reads like a 3 hour long exposition as narrated by Singappa, played by Prakash Raj, with bits of action set pieces thrown in for good measure.
Cinematography by Ratnavelu is jarring sometimes even disrespecting basic shot rules in preserving the line of sight of the characters making it tedious to watch on the big screen. Anirudh's background music while decent, fails to deliver the emotional impact that the story demands. The presence of Jhanvi Kapoor is to deliver some "eye candy" and her only job is to seduce the young Vara and marry him. This is 2024 and I cannot believe big actors like NTR who got wide recognition for his role in RRR okay'd a script with cheap objectification of women.
Writer and Director Koratala Siva failed to tell a compelling story of a leader and has the audacity to tell us to wait for part-2. Will it get made now is anybody's guess. If not for NTR, this movies would've been an utter disaster in all possible ways.
--@CinephileIndia2023.
