At this moment there is a painting by artist Nibha Akireddy in a gallery in Los Angeles. In an exhibition curated by Rajiv Menon, the piece shows Akireddy seated and wearing sunglasses, her swagger emanating from the screen and immediately captivating the viewer. As I toured the gallery, Menon explained that Akireddy was inspired by Telugu films to imagine herself as an alpha and a heroine – in a position of power that women in these films rarely get to occupy.

I saw this painting a little over a week before the screening of Devara: Part 1 by Koratala Siva, which highlights the frustrating fantasy in Akireddy's painting. The plot is just a formality; The real purpose of the film is to highlight star NT Rama Rao Jr. in every possible capacity, along with his male co-stars Saif Ali Khan, Prakash Raj, Srikanth and dozens if not hundreds of background actors and dancers. It's a movie in which a woman doesn't speak until 30 minutes in, and that doesn't happen again until that much time has passed. Hindi film actress Janhvi Kapoor (who should still be on a “Bawaal” excuse tour, but okay) is unnecessarily roped into the second role, not because she fits the role (she doesn't) or because it highlights the love story (There is none). , but in an appeal to the North Indian audience that is so transparent that it seems crude.

Although the film is named after Rama Rao Jr.'s Devara, it begins with a character named Danny (Ajay) who goes in search of a man named Yethi to visit Police Commissioner Tulasi (Abhimanyu Singh). If you want to know who Yethi is or what purpose he serves, you don't have to watch the rest of the film, in which he is never mentioned again – that's apparently a “Devara: Part 2” problem. After detouring through a few more characters, Danny finally speaks to Singappa (Raj), a village elder on the border of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in southern India, who begins to tell the story of Devara.

Twelve years ago, Devara was the hero of his mountain community for reasons that are unclear at best. He is a skilled fighter, the annual winner of a physical competition between the surrounding villages, a beloved husband and father, and also part of a rather elaborate smuggling operation that involves transporting huge crates of weapons underwater with his male colleagues. After the unprovoked death of a child, Devara ends the arms trade – but that doesn't stop him from slaughtering anyone who disobeys this order and ultimately carrying out a massacre, after which he disappears without a trace.

This is the first half of the film and the better half. Rama Rao Jr. and Khan dance to “Ayudha Pooja” and then perform a fight sequence where at one point their hands are tied together and set ablaze. A group of men try to ambush Devara on the beach, some of them disguise themselves as sand and seaweed while crawling like crustaceans, which is fabulous. Rama Rao Jr. enters by flying out of the sea, a moment that an explanation would actively ruin. For his part, the North Indian Khan delivers – not his best Langda Tyagi, because that is Langda Tyagi, but a compelling reminder that he is a great villain who commands the screen even if he is dubbed by another actor.

We then return to the present (1996 for some reason), where the villages still live in Devara's shadow, most notably his adult son Vara (Rama Rao Jr. again). This is when Kapoor's Thangam ponders at length whether she actually likes Vara, which seems to be directly related to the propensity for violence (which he did not inherit from his father). It's the half where a man threatens to rape Vara's sister and mother. The mother (Shruti Marathe, whose character was not listed on IMDb or Wikipedia at press time) says it won't happen, but also that if it does happen, they will both die by suicide. Clean!

So here we are again, supposedly light years away from Akireddy's vision. In a film where one scene is explicitly about “sending away the women and children,” positioning every woman as a wife, mother, or victim (one of Vara's enemies kills him for speaking unprompted), it's hard to understand why a woman would not find it appropriate to empower herself through imaginary works of art because one cannot rely on mainstream Tollywood for help. “Devara: Part 1” doesn’t openly hate women (like “Animal”), but it doesn’t understand, respect, value, believe in or care about them. It's decidedly more reverential to CGI sharks, which increase the value of every scene by 200 percent when they appear on screen (more often than you think!).

Devara: Part 1 is likely to fill the cinema halls and entertain millions during its release. Anirudh's songs will saturate social media and the man of masses (Rama Rao Jr.) will have another hit with audiences. But for an industry with such a passionate audience and power brokers like Rama Rao Jr., Kapoor and Khan – a pan-Indian cast – it's endlessly frustrating to see films like this not only not getting better, but also not even trying .

Grade: C

Devara: Part 1 is in theaters now.

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