Salaar: CeaseFire Movie Review: Prabhas and Prithviraj Sukumaran show friendship and emotions amid tons of bloodshed and goriness. You can’t escape once you are in the grim world of Khansaar.
Salaar Movie Review: Salaar is beastly, gory and feels like the intolerably spiciest thing you’ve ever tasted. It is too grim and impatient even for those who believe in its genre. Director Prashanth Neel brings back the memories of KGF with Salaar. Only this time, he has a God-like figure, the righteous, the one who would do everything for his word, and the invincible one – Prabhas as Deva. The film delivers on its promise. It is a mass actioner, the bloodshed never ends and you are never allowed to breathe and understand its fast-paced narrative. But, is that all you want a film to do for you? Is it fine to use your actors only to show flexing muscles and the unwavering saga of violence – everywhere, in every nook of your scene?
Much like KGF, Salaar is also set in a fictional city, run by its own government and its own constitution. The rest of the country and the authorities have no control or even awareness of what might be happening inside this brutally-run city equipped with the most advanced weapons and soldiers who are killing machines. Vardha Raja Mannar (Prithviraj Sukumaran) is the second son of Raja Mannar (Jagapathi Babu), the current ruler of Khansaar. When he is declared as the new ruler of the city, he finds himself in the middle of a political conflict. Vardha is attacked by those not wanting him to take over the Khansaar throne and there begins the bloody Game of Thrones. He reaches out to his best friend, who’s almost like a Laxman to his Ram, to protect himself, and his people, but most importantly, to win back the throne.
Vardha and Deva have been friends for 25 years but haven’t really been together. Despite that, Deva stands true to his vow and will appear every time his friend calls for him in need. He has his own past and mysteries and is driven only by the word of his mother who makes him promise non-violence until a woman is kidnapped by goons and only he can save her. Enters Aadhya (Shruti Haasan), the woman in danger, and the daughter of a man being hunted down for something he did in the past against the Mannar family. Deva will save Aadhya and re-establish his position as the mighty saviour of the world but only with his mother’s agreement. Once this beast is loose, there’s no stopping him or the bloodshed that follows.
In Salaar, Prashanth Neel creates a world where the only colour you see is the colour of blood. The rest of things look drawn and constructed with charcoal. It’s almost as if he uses the same set from KGF except for the new faces. But, wait, do they look any different? To make them look more fearsome, he paints their eyes black and gives them overtly curly hair. Guess, not then! Everyone in Salaar wears shades of black or brown and is carrying some kind of weapon, always ready to kill or to be killed. There’s no scope for life here. You either die or you live to die soon. But, that’s where Prashanth’s films take you to. To places where you feel stuck, unable to breathe but the only way out is to bear it all. The thumping music and the widened eyes add to your trauma – to the extent that you find yourself rooting for the hero to kill everyone and get done with the film sooner than they plan. Salaar, which starts with a hard-to-figure-out first half, doesn’t take time to reach a totally painful second half. The twists are predictable but only if you are paying attention to the story, which is hard to do because you can barely focus on the narrative amid the intrusive background music and the abbreviated characters. The only respite in the film is the Salaar himself, Prabhas who is doing what he is expected and loved for. He has a story you want yourself invested in. Even those tiny moments of sparkling chemistry between him and Shruti intrigue you. But, you don’t get to see him at his best. Deva is the killing machine in Salaar and you cheer for him but you want to see him doing more, especially talking more. The actor has hardly been given any dialogue. In fact, the first 60 minutes of the film go by without him uttering a word.
Prabhas does action like a piece of cake. He is always walking on a winning spree. He is the hero you always put your money on. He once became Baahubali and never looked back. The most indomitable spirit there is who understands the power of his screen presence, Prabhas is both Baahubali and mighty Thor in Salaar. And that’s it. You take him but don’t fetch his character beyond that. No emotions, no drama, just action in the most fatuously designed scenes. Every scene in Salaar: CeaseFire becomes the introductory scene for Prabhas. There’s always one voice in the background addressing him as ‘vo’ who ‘once arrives never goes back’ or ‘vo’ who is unbeatable or ‘vo’ who is born to protect people, ‘vo’ who is ‘paagal‘ and works on his instincts. In a scene, he is described as the ‘vo’ who’s come to save them all, the son of Goddess Kali because she couldn’t come herself to protect her kids. We get it. Prabhas looks like the winner of all heavens but how long can you keep listening to his winning stories in a three-hour-long saga? We did that in KGF. Are we to bear it all again?
Salaar is just another action film with tons of non-negotiable violence everywhere. The women in the film are simply powerless. They are either bringing up violent men or being the victim of rape and violence themselves. Even Goddess Kali is powerless in the film until Deva arrives and saves Her legacy by killing the sinners. Salaar looks strictly for the fans of Prabhas and for the actor himself, it’s a film that he needed so much at this point in his career. But, for those who believe in his skills, it looks like a disservice done to him. It’s high time filmmakers start looking at this actor beyond the aggressive and larger-than-life man he can be on-screen. All of this is stereotyping and Salaar makes the biggest contribution to it with a broken narrative.
Stars: 3
