Release date:
|
April 28,
2017
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Director:
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S.S. Rajamouli
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishna,
Sathyaraj, Nassar, a few seconds of Tamannaah Bhatia
Telugu
|
(Note: This is a review
of the Hindi dubbed version of the Telugu film Baahubali: The Conclusion.)
Fans of the Baahubali
franchise have been discussing the hashtag #WKKB on the social media for a
while now. If you have not guessed yet, that stands for “Why Kattappa Killed
Baahubali”, a reference to the teaser in the closing scene of Baahubali: The Beginning in 2015. You
will not find spoilers on the #WKKB front in this review. Hold on to your seats
though for the answer to a far more pressing question: #DRTOHS.
In the first film, the tribal boy Shivudu (Prabhas) discovered
that he is, in fact, Mahendra Baahubali, son of the late great Amarendra
Baahubali (also Prabhas) who was robbed of the throne of Mahishmati kingdom by
the machinations of his cruel cousin Bhallaladeva (Rana Daggubati) and uncle
Bijjaladeva (Nassar). In Baahubali: The
Conclusion, Mahendra hears the story of why and how that happened before
setting off to avenge the deaths of his father and foster grandmother Sivagami
(Ramya Krishna) and to free his mother Devasena (Anushka Shetty) from
imprisonment in Mahishmati.
As with the opening film, this one too is an Amar Chitra
Katha-style blend of mythological references and palace intrigue laid out on a
vast canvas of visual grandeur. The proportion of the ingredients has been
changed though, with myth and socially regressive themes being scaled down,
family politics being scaled up, and the decibel levels being raised by several
notches.
The novelty of seeing an Indian film so laden with heavy special
effects at such a scale from start to finish has worn off in the two years
since Baahubali 1 was released, and
it is hard now to forgive this one for Mahishmati’s plastic façade and those
painfully obvious CGI beasts. Somehow, nothing here seems to match up to that
waterfall in Part 1. Still, when the going is good, director S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Conclusion is pleasing to
the eye, in particular with its costumes, lavish interiors and innovative
stunts.
A film of this nature obviously requires a suspension of
disbelief in that last department. And frankly, if we are willing to swallow
the invincibility of the likes of Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and the various
Bonds down the decades, then there is no reason why we should not buy that
scene in which Amarendra mounts an elephant by walking up its trunk with the
animal’s assistance and – my favourite of the lot – that war-time gimmick
involving palm trees, shields and Newtonian physics towards the end.
Those stunts, M.M. Kreem’s background score and the use of his
songs to up the tempo of the narrative are what keep Baahubali: The Conclusion watchable even when the ridiculous
over-acting becomes hard to take and the lack of freshness
in the storyline sinks in. Daggubati and Shetty –
both gorgeous, both equally charismatic – keep themselves relatively in check,
which is admirable considering that over-statement seems to be the demand of
Rajamouli’s storytelling in this cinematic diptych (“relatively” being a
key word here). Prabhas’ pretty face somewhat
compensates for all that self-indulgent posing about he does, most notably
while Devasena sings a song about Lord Krishna in a scene that unwittingly
betrays her man’s Oedipus complex.
The rest of the cast is laughable, with each rivalling the other
for the year’s Worst Acting Awards. There is the usually wonderful Nassar who
hams here to such an extent that he makes Sohrab Modi seem under-stated in
comparison. The extras in every single scene – soldiers, courtiers and subjects
– seem to be competing with the memorably howlarious bit-part players of the
black-and-white era. And Subba Raju playing Devasena’s beau Kumara Varma is so
bad, he should be declared a threat to society.
The queen of the film’s hamsters though (if such a word does not
exist in the acting lexicon, then it should) is Krishna whose eyes remain fixed
in a bulbous stare through the nearly three hours of this film’s running time.
For all its seeming innocuousness, Baahubali: The Beginning was a horribly narrow-minded film that
rolled out a range of stereotypes couched in its good-looking frames. The
black-denotes-evil cliché was exacerbated by its white-is-glamorous conviction.
Disability coincidentally found its way only on to evil people. And Sivagami’s
power paled into insignificance in the face of Shivudu’s sexual violation and ultimate subjugation of the warrior Avanthika played by Tamannaah Bhatia.
In that respect, Baahubali:
The Conclusion is a step up. Devasena remains strong and active from start
to finish, and is at no point reduced to being Shivudu or Amarendra’s sidekick.
She is a partner, not a prop. Still, the marginalisation of Avanthika in this
film is almost tragic. In Part 1 she was a feisty woman whose mission was taken
over by Shivudu once he ‘makes’ her fall in love with him and discover her
inner femininity. In Part 2, she is an absolute nobody with nothing to say and
just a few seconds of screen time in mass scenes. In that context, giving
Bhatia fourth billing in the closing credits (after the two leading men and
Shetty, but before Krishna) comes across as condescension, not an
acknowledgement of her star status.
There
is so much else that is troubling in Rajamouli’s worldview: for one, the
undisputed right of the Kshatriya to rule. If there is a question here, it is
only: which Kshatriya – the good guy or the bad guy? And either way, it has to
be one of the guys. All the spectacle in the world, the Durga-esque positioning
of Sivagami and Devasena, and the emphasis on Mahendra/Amarendra’s virtues
cannot camouflage Baahubali’s disturbing
romanticisation of social status-quoism.
This then is the conclusion of this review: Baahubali: The Conclusion is a cocktail of fun stunts, attractive
stars, grand settings, terrible acting, conflicted
attitudes and closeted conservatism. (Aside: The Hindi dubbing is impressive. A
bow here to the choice of voices and to Manoj Muntashir, dialogue writer and
lyricist for this version.)
As is always the case, each viewer’s response to the film
depends on her/his priorities. My priority, I admit, is not #WKKB but #DRTOHS: does Rana take off his shirt (in the film, as he has
for the posters)? Answer: yes he does. For good measure, so does Prabhas. Both
men rip off their upperwear in an extended scene of hand-to-hand combat, to
reveal perfectly sculpted, stunningly muscular torsos in what has now become
commercial Indian cinema’s most-used formula across all states. In the way it
is told, #WKKB is not as dramatic a revelation as expected. #DRTOHS, on the
other hand, is absolute paisa vasool.
Rating (out of five stars): **1/4
CBFC
Rating (India):
|
UA
|
Running
time:
|
167
minutes
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