There are many disappointing aspects to “Devara: Part One”. Jr. NTR’s return to the big screen after the massive success of “RRR” is underwhelming and routine. The idea of this film taking place in a rural fishing village with pirate undertones sounded pretty interesting to me, but it ends up feeling like every other mass film. As for filmmaker Koratala Siva, this is an unfortunate follow-up to his disastrous film “Acharya”. For those, like myself, who thought “Acharya” was just a fluke will come to realize that there are many fluke in this sea. The most unforgivable aspect of this whole affair is that “Part: One” tagline. I firmly believe that this story does not warrant two parts and is a cash-grab effort capitalizing on the recent trend of splitting films into multiple parts. This film is a symptom of this trend and it is worse off because of it. As it stands, this is an under baked and unfinished film whose entertainment value lies in seeing Jr. NTR back on the big screen and hearing Anirudh’s banging score that is played over a bunch of un-enthused participants.

The first part of the story focuses on the father (Devara) who is a revered figure in a rural fishing village. He works with Saif Ali Khan’s Bhaira to smuggle illegal weapons into India. Devara eventually comes to realize that the weapons they are helping to smuggle in is hurting his own people and decides to stop smuggling and gets into an argument with Bhaira who wants to keep doing it. The second half of the story deals with Devara’s son Vara and the aftermath of the clash between Devara and Bhaira. Vara is essentially the opposite of Devara, where his father would be seen as being brave he is seen as being a coward. The story takes a few twists here and there, takes a few pages from Baahubali’s playbook, but the film closes on a note that feels incredibly contrived to the point where I needed to check myself to make sure this was really happening.

I think the saddest part of all this is that I really didn’t go into this with high expectations and I still came out disappointed. There were some cool shots here and there, the blood and the moon scene was very whistle-worthy. I also enjoyed the scenes of the ayudha pooja, the fight scenes there felt raw and engaging. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the film is quite routine. Also, Jhanvi Kapoor is in this film. Anyway….

There also seems to be a huge problem with execution. There is a fantastic set-up for a scene early in the film where we see Devara smuggling a container from a cargo vessel. There is minimal dialogue and the tension of the scene comes from Devara’s crew trying to avoid being seen by police that are searching the vessel. That sounds great on paper, but the actual scene doesn’t come off right. The lightning of the scene is too bright for something that is supposed to take place in the middle of the night, certain cuts make it hard to believe that Devara’s crew wasn’t seen, and there is also no sound at all for Devara’s team members as they walk around the ship (I can understand that they are trained to be quiet, but absolute pin drop silence even when they are slipping or running took me out of the scene). Even Anirudh’s score, which really elevates the blander scenes in the film, is doing too much here. I think the scene would’ve been more effective had Anirudh’s score been dialed back and the sound design of the ship and the people took front and center. Even many shots of this scene, especially where Jr. NTR is in-between the shipping containers, look incredibly artificial.

I point this scene out as a way to say that even if this film had a tighter story, there would still be some pretty big missteps. Perhaps they would be more forgivable if the story was more satisfying, but it comes back to there being something lacking with Koratala Siva’s direction. After “Bharat Ane Nenu” I was excited to see a filmmaker who seemed able to blend mass commercial elements with a story that was equally as engaging. This was the same director that gave us Prabhas in “Mirchi”. They weren’t perfect films, but they were well made and hit their mark. However, this film lacks the kind of conviction that was seen with his previous films.

I genuinely doubt there is something worthwhile in Part two that we are not seeing here, but I’m always ready for a surprise. Is it so wrong for me to still hold out hope for Siva? A man can dream.