Prashanth Neel loves dark, violent worlds. In his first film, Ugramm, we had Mughor. Then came the gold fields of KGF. And now, in Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire, we have Khansaar, which exists within India geographically but for all other purposes is its own country. In every film, Prashanth keeps upping the tone and texture. In Mughor, we just had some generic ganglords. In the KGF films, things got more specific. We got gangsters with the very specific motive of controlling and ruling a gold-producing land. In Salaar, Prashanth goes all out with Khansaar. It is ruled by three tribes. Among the rulers, there are elaborate voting rituals. Among the savages, there are elaborate raping rituals, involving a kite. Each tribe has its own lineage of fathers and sons and assorted others. It’s dense. It’s fascinating. It’s mapped out down to the minutest detail. And for some strange reason, it all appears after the intermission point.
Until then, we are asked to watch Ugramm all over again. Once again, we get a foreign-returned damsel who’s in distress because of reasons that have to do with her father. (Her name is Aadya, and she’s played by Shruti Haasan.) Once again, we get a hero who has promised his mother that he will not get into a fight. Eswari Rao plays the mother, narrating all her lines with fiery eyes and through clenched teeth. Sriya Reddy plays a villainess, narrating all her lines with fiery eyes and through clenched teeth. in the midst of this, it’s a bit of a relief to witness the clueless Aadya, who’s the audience substitute. She is the one to whom the character played by Mime Gopi tells the story of Khansaar.
There’s one good screenwriting decision in the pre-interval portion, and that’s to open the film with Deva and Varadha, the Prabhas and Prithviraj characters, as teenagers. We get a superb “friendship” scene in which Deva gives up his life for Varadha, in a manner of speaking, and Varadha resuscitates him. The “I will give my life for you” trope – that becomes literal here, and it opens the film with a big bang. The problem with the rest of the first half is that it is all so generic. Way back in Ugramm, we knew that it was only a matter of time before the mother freed the hero from his vow and asks him to fight for the right. And that was with a leading man of the stature of Srimurali. This is Prabhas!!! So we just keep waiting for the inevitable transformation to action hero.
This action sequence is unremarkable. It’s the same old thing where Prabhas hits Goon No. 1, who goes flying in slow-motion, Prabhas hits Goon No. 2, who goes flying in slow-motion, and so on. The second-half fights are much better. There’s one with a double axe that’s satisfactorily gory, and the climactic fight has more chopped body parts than in all Indian movies I have seen so far. Bhuvan Gowda’s black-toned cinematography makes everything look super-classy, and Ravi Basrur’s music makes everything super-emotional. The highs are really high. I had gooseflesh when Deva is referred to as Kali’s son, and we get a stunning image that makes it look like he has many hands, like the goddess.
I liked the way Ujwal Kulkarni’s micro-cut editing worked in tandem with the screenplay. I liked that the prelude to the opening fight is given to us only in the second half. I liked the callback to the boy who serves tea. I liked the scene where two elderly cleaning women are established for a payoff that has to do with bullets. I liked the visuals of the red-veiled clan. But I wished the whole film had been about Khansaar, and that the whole Aadya portion had been axed. That way, the world of Khansaar and the people would have breathed more. Now, Tinnu Anand – for one – is used mainly for reaction shots, and some of the time, I found it confusing to make out who’s who. Salaar - Part 1 is a bit exhausting that way, but it is a decent watch. It comes together in the head satisfyingly. Prabhas and Prirhviraj work well together. The sequel promises to fill in a lot of the gaps, and we will hopefully see more of the “madman” that we are told Deva is. And so the wait begins!