Movie Review: The Paradise
Shikanja Malik ( Mohan Babu) has a tight and cruel grip on the Savari tribe, exploiting them to his ends, torturing them and treating them unfairly without basic rights. The tribe led by Sakamna is keen to get an identity via a ration card and voting rights, denied to them for decades even after indepandance.
Sakamma's son Sadayan ( Nani) is jailed as a teen, for a crime and when he returns home years later, he finds the situation as bleak as ever, with no hope for change.
But circumstances push Sadayan, (who hates his mother due to a past revelation of a secret) to take on her mantle to protect his people and free them from Malik.
But Paradise is a cruel place and the enemy is too powerful. Does Sadayan survive? Does he win and lead the people to freedom?
The film has at its core, an interesting premise of a tribe seeking to fight the injustice done to them. But the way director Srikant Odela using bloodied, gory , relentless violence and only darkness and death to achieve his goals, pushes the film further away from the audiences.
From beginning to end, guttural sounds of yelling and screamig resonate around almost every scene.
Gory violence, with every type of weapon from Clubs, chains and knives to huge swords, daggers and logs, all invade the screen regularly. Bodies are chopped in pieces, fingers of the villagers are battered and hammered down and cut and the mother is even thrown into a dungeon immediately. Scenes like the hero intro Jail fight when dozens of thugs pile up on Sadayan, which he shakes off, all the while protecting his braids, seems tough to swallow.
The screen is dark most of the time, suffering seemingly from a KGF hangover, with people either yelling, crying, being beaten up, electrocuted or chopped up for the most part, which is greatly disturbing, even more so on repeat mode.
Though Nani has built up a tough physique to fit the look, the braided hair look just doesn't fit the image and takes away the impact of his larger than life rugged look.
Kayadu Lohar, looks beautiful in the film and shines with her presence, first as a friend , then lover and the songs and montages of their time spent together are well filmed.
The latter half of the film goes overboard with greater violence and anarchy and much confusion. Kayadu as a heroine making Adult movies, filmed by her mother, to pay off debts, doesnt sit quite well in the film and seems contrived. The mother- son sentiment is overdone with too much melodrama. The film hardly gives any time to the viewer to absorb the emotions nor connect with and feel for the characters, with the over the top guttural screaming, torture and violence holding sway almost all the time. There is only cacophony and chaos, fear and cruelty at every step.
Anirudh Ravichander's music is a pillar of support and the yeshanagula song with Keerthy Suresh is a colorful, peepy track imn the midst of the dark and sombre color palette the rest of the time.
One cant help but think that Nani, the natural star who has endeared himself with audiences crossing language barriers, should choose his scripts and directors more carefully. The horrific amount of violence and types of tortures ( a pregnant lady electrocuted on her stomach in public for instance) Srikanth Odela has come up with and the fact that Nani chose to go with it all, makes you wonder whether they really thought their audiences would be entertained by it all.
Despite being a film with grand making, lots of hardwork and effort of a superbly chosen giant ensemble cast and a cherished hero like Nani, the film doesnt succeed in making a mark.
Rating 1.5/5
Cast:
Nani, Kayadu Lohar, Mohan Babu and others.
Direction: Srikanth Odela
Music : Anirudh Ravichander
Producer : Sudhakar Cherukudi
TN distribution : Think Studios
