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Rating : Poor (1/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2015
Running time : 2 hours 37 minutes
Director : Amit Sharma
Cast : Arjun Singh, Sonakshi Sinha, Manoj Bajpayee, Raj Babbar, Rajesh Sharma
Tevar’s trailer lured me into believing that the movie would be acceptably decent, if not good, but alas! It was not to be.
Tevar lands firmly into Bollywood’s time-honored genre of “damsel-in-distress” films. It harks back to the terrible films of the 1980s, the insufferable Himmatwalas where the female was only a helpless plot point, unable to defend herself again the evil gunda/don who wanted her for one reason or another. Enter the macho hero, unwittingly drawn into the battle, and once in, resolving to defend the fair maiden’s honor till his last breath.
Arjun Kapoor as kabaddi player Ghanshyam “Pintu” Shukla, from the lovely city of Agra (Agre ka launda, he calls himself), saunters in like the producer’s son. Strong on the brawn, he hits first and thinks later – a perfect fit for a Hindi film hero. Radhika Joshi (Sinha) is the pretty, pert sister of an investigative journalist. When said journalist targets politician Mahender Singh’s (Rajesh Sharma) loose-cannon brother Gajender Singh (Manoj Bajpayi), Gajender is out for blood. Ergo, the film.
Tevar is excessive – excessively violent and excessively stupid. The lead characters are not very likable, and probably last in line when the good Lord was handing out common-sense. I wasn’t really invested in seeing their happy dreams come true. Sonakshi does yet another simpering, save-me act, after the blustery face-off with the bad guy. Arjun’s role here reminds me of his role in Gunday, as in speak-with-your-fists and things will take care of themselves. His projected persona is of a devilish imp, who gets into scrabbles because of his good heart. i.e.; innocent, brawny, boy-man about to save the love of his life. Excuse me while I gag.
Manoj Bajpayee is one of the reasons I wanted to see the film, and he makes a good job of it as Gajender singh. Unfortunately, his performance, even though stellar, couldn’t save a film where everyone else pretty much sleep-walked through their roles.
The music is quite forgettable, although the song “Joganiyan” was picturized quite well. You don’t need to watch the movie, just watch this song (and I’ll make that easy for you – see below) and be done with it. So basically, Tevar ends up being a cliched pot-boiler of little romance and lots of violence. Instead of going forward to elegant, innovative story-telling Tevar takes 10 steps back into hackneyed, over-done, cringe-worthy film-making. I hope it crashes and burns.
Kidwise: The film’s violence took me by surprise. Quite a lot of time is spent in detailing out scenes where extreme violence is carried out and where the villain gloats on the act, while his quarry suffers. There are guns, knives, swords used with swift, slashing violence. Shruthi Hassan appears in an “item number”, where our “innocent” hero joins her in a couple of suggestive moves.
