Salaar Part 1 - Ceasefire Movie Review: Prabhas-Prashanth Neel's Film is All About Buildup, Buildup and, Sigh... Buildup! (LatestLY Exclusive)

Salaar Part 1 - Ceasefire Movie Review: Prashanth Neel is making Salaar, starring 'Rebel' star Prabhas, into two parts. Following the tradition of Pushpa, the end credits of Salaar Part 1 - Ceasefire reveal the title of the next part. Okay let me put this bluntly - remove all the buildup and slow-mo shots from this movie, and you can fit three Salaars in here, since this one movie has the meat of a quarter of a film. This KGF hangover actioner, inspired by the director's own Kannada hit Ugramm, is all about buildup. The first half is a buildup for the second half. The second half is a buildup for the sequel, and in all the chaos and dull and muddy schematics, a migraine keeps building up in my forehead. Salaar Part 1 – Ceasefire Review: Prabhas and Prithviraj Sukumaran's Epic Actioner Garners Mixed Reactions From Netizens.

Neel loves lawless lands in his movies, and in this new universe of Salaar, we get Khansaar - a place that isn't mapped in India but controls all the illegal activities happening in the country. So good for our tourism. Like his KGF world, this is also a universe where every villain either hams or screams or does both, and every supporting character over-dramatically reacts to stuff.

Anyway, in Khansaar, Deva and Varadaraja Mannar are childhood friends, and Deva is someone who is willing to go to any lengths to protect his friend. I think he is also suffering from some sort of mental illness, but Salaar pushes it as machismo. Due to certain circumstances, Deva and his mother (Easwari Rao) have to leave Khansaar, and before leaving, Deva promises Varadaraja that he would come to help him out whenever Varadaraja needs him.

Years later when we meet Deva (Prabhas), he is living in a hamlet in Orissa and is now a man of few words and fewer expressions, whose aggression is silenced by his mother. There is Shruti Haasan, who plays the daughter of an NRI whom Deva takes under his protection. She became this catalyst for exposition as to why Deva is being reined in and why he is still feared. And yes, the actress still can't pull off a convincing performance. But then in a poorly written character only meant to let the audience understand the hero better, such a performance is sufficient.

Watch the Trailer of Salaar Part 1:

The second half of Salaar is about how Varadaraja makes Deva deliver on his promise when clans in his fiefdom are threatening his recently-received place of power. We see even more ugly villains, arms are cut off, heads are chopped, and people fly all over the place in extreme slow-mo. And of course, even if goons have guns, they only come in attacking our overpowered protagonist with axes and swords, when one bullet to the head could have ended this movie much sooner than you think.

But in all this bloody mess, what Salaar lacks is an emotional connect to the story. Even the supposed friendship between Deva and Varadaraja Mannar doesn't have the ethos the film demands for us to care for this bonding. Though I am no big fan of KGF movies, at least I think the people somehow connected to how the anti-hero's ambition is linked to the promise he gave to his mother. Not easy to do so in this Duryodhana-Karna inspired tale.

I do believe that Prashanth Neel is a filmmaker with his own distinct vision, a director who has a keen eye for visuals that look cool to the audience, even if the colour schematic often becomes a challenge. An example of this is an action scene in the second half, where Deva defies an order to rescue a would-be child victim from a rapist villain. A particular moment - which was spoiled in the trailer - has him skewer (conveniently) a bunch of goons in a single line, and when the camera shifts in front of him, he looks like an incarnation of Goddess Kali. Adding the surrounding women in red sarees who are chanting in unison as he approaches the villain with murderous rage, it could have been a really cool scene.

What hampers it is the over-usage of slow-mo and action choreography that doesn't do anything impressive except make people or their limbs fly. If the director took some of the amount dedicated to building up the hero in crafting good action scenes, then at least the violence won't feel so mindless and gratuitous. It is time for Neel to give the KGF textures (from character design to production design to every single hole in the film) some rest - unless he is planning to link this set of movies to his previous universe. Just how long can he depend on Ravi Basrur's BG score to amp up the feels? Salaar Song 'Prathikadalo': Second Single From Prabhas' Film Embraces Healing Power and Advocates Strength Through Forgiveness!

Coming to the cast, Prabhas looks cool and all in his plentiful slow-motion walks, but I wonder if it is by design that his directors have restricted him to his deadpan expressions. Prithviraj Sukumaran has a meaty role but is rather subdued. Hope the sequel gets him to explore his character with more dynamo. The rest of the cast compete in making faces for the camera. It feels bad to see a National Award-winning actor like Bobby Simha stuck in such bland negative roles.

Final Thoughts

Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire is about making Prabhas look cool within a KGF setting. He is even made to utter bad English in one scene, just like Yash loved to do in the KGF movies. Despite the mildly interesting world-building in the movie, Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire spends way to much time in just setting up the hero, the mild conflicts and for the next film before paving way to gruesome, but pretty mindless violence. In doing so, it simply forgets in wanting to have an identity of its own.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 22, 2023 01:21 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).