‘Devara: Part 1’ review: Half-hearted in every way

There’s little a film can do to hide the fact that its makers haven’t thought things through. Bhaira (Saif Ali Khan) and his gang of semi-aquatic killers are waiting for their tormentor, Devara (N.T. Rama Rao Jr), to appear. Though the man has been missing from the village for years, they’re hoping he’ll visit his dying mother. And he does, entering his hut through the back door and leaving the same way. Bhaira is no mastermind, but surely keeping a watch on both entrances would be the way to go if you’re finally close to catching the man who’s ruined your life.

Later, the film tries to explain this scene, and just makes it worse. At some point, you have to wonder if writer-director Koratala Siva cares enough to make things stick or whether he’s content to throw sharks and wrestling matches and pirate raids and NTR doing the superhero landing pose at the screen and hope it all works out.

Devara and Bhaira are strongmen in a coastal village, not exactly pirates but pirate-adjacent; they move contraband off ships under the noses of the coast guard, for which they’re paid by arms smugglers. Their relationship—more co-workers than friends—is forever altered when Devara realises the harm they’re doing (what did he think they were moving in those giant containers?). He lays down a new rule: no more going out to sea unless it’s to fish. Bhaira, smarting from his defeat by Devara in a village tournament, vows revenge.  

Then there’s Vara, Devara’s son. Also played by NTR Jr, he looks exactly like his dad, except his hair is shorter. He’s timid where Devara is fearless and decisive, but NTR struggles with even this basic delineation. From conception to execution, it’s one of the most unconvinced, and unconvincing, double roles I’ve ever seen. 

Devara: Part 1 is the simplest of stories: two compatriots fall out, son takes up father’s mantle. Siva has little interest in exploring the setting or his character's motivations. The film is 178 minutes long not because it has the ideas to fill this time. It’s long simply because films of this kind are expected to be long. Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire (2023), another first instalment of a Telugu franchise, was a grimy sprawl of a film, but at least it covered a lot of ground in terms of plot and setting. Devara stretches itself thin trying to expand a story that could be effectively summed up in three sentences. 

Siva’s film is most interesting when the action goes out on a limb. There’s the silly joy of attack with shark, and a forest chase that’s an exciting whirl of dead leaves. Best of all is the sequence where Devara is attacked on the beach by thugs who emerge from the sea and slither towards him like primordial ooze. When he’s beating them up, their torn clothing unfurls in slo-mo like seaweed. At one point, an arc of blood from his sickle completes the circle of a crescent moon: the kind of batshit violent poetry that Telugu film at its best can come up with.

Janhvi Kapoor’s Thangam exists only to talk about Vara, which is still a better fate than the average female character in a Telugu film can hope for (the other women in Devara are sacrificing mothers, a blind sister, and a flirtatious one who’s abruptly killed). Khan, whose pulp villainy enlivened Tanhaji (2020), does as much as he’s called upon to, which is very little. Prakash Raj and Shine Tom Chacko collect their paychecks. Devara: Part 1 is a half-hearted swipe of a film. It’s hard to believe there could be another of these.