Tevar - A review

First things first, though Tevar had all ingredients needed for a masala entertainer but this script has been done to death so many times in Bollywood before that there is nothing new to offer. The movie would have probably worked if it had come in the early 2000s. I wonder why would a debutant director trying to make his way into the top league in Bollywood, want to take up a subject that is as old as some 10 years or so? Tevar is a remake of the Telugu hit movie Okkadu that came way back in 2003. Thus the plot is outdated, and so the almost three hours long movie gets really boring post interval. Unnecessary and inconsequential songs only stretch the movie even further. The movie left me terribly disappointed, as much by the plotline as by the leading actors Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha. This movie required a persona of a star like Salman to carry off the style which Arjun Kapoor still lacks, he is too young and new in his career to be able to create that image, so fails badly though he tries hard at it. Probably he is trying too hard to shed his image of a chocolate boy hero and instead to transit to an action hero. Sonakshi Sinha on the other hand yet again plays an inconsequential role. I have lost count of such roles that she has been playing in the recent times. I wonder why she keeps choosing such scripts while she is still trying to find her feet in Bollywood.

The story is set in Agra and neighbouring Mathura and revolves around a young boy named Pintu Shukla (played by Arjun Kapoor) who does nothing but playing kabaddi (but he is surely well-known in the city for his kabaddi skills). His father (played by Raj Babbar) happens to a senior Police officer, the SP and keeps warning him not to get involved in any trouble whatsoever or else he would put him behind bars someday but Pintu can't help himself from getting into something or the other. It so happens that oneday while he had gone to Mathura with his friends to attend a marriage, he bumps into Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha) who was being dragged away by a goon, Bahubali Gajender Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), from the bus stop, because she was trying to flee to Delhi from where she could have left for the US. Bahubali Gajender Singh had fallen heads over heels for Radhika and wanted to marry her. Radhika wasn't interested and when her brother, who happened to be a newsreporter tried to warn Gajender to stay away from her, he gets killed instead. Seeing Radhika in trouble, Pintu, without knowing who Gajender actually was, beats him up and thus gets chased by his men. The movie is all about what follows next but then isn't it along the predictable lines, that we have already seen so many times before?

Speaking of performances, only the two seasoned actors, Manoj Bajpayee and Raj Babbar manage to hold your attention. It's only because of their acting that the movie is somewhat "jhellable". Manoj Bajpayee once again plays the role of a baddie, that of a rustic goon to perfection and comes up with a flawless performance. You would sit up on your seat with attention every time he comes on screen. His terrific dialogue delivery and mannerisms of a UP waley bhaiya deserves to be seen. Raj Babbar too delivers a class act. But because of a stale script and the weak plotline their performances go waste. By the time the movie draws to an end, we already know what’s going to happen. The music by Sajid - Wajid and Imran Khan is also mediocre. The only noteworthy song I found somewhat worth listening was "Superman, Salman Ka Fan". All other songs felt very thanda. So the movie can surely be given a miss.