Director: Om Raut
Cast: Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Sunny Singh, Devdatta Nage, Saif Ali Khan, Vatsal Sheth, Sonal Chauhan, and others
Where: In theatres near you
Rating: 3 stars
A lot has been said and written about filmmaker Om Raut’s depiction of the epic mythological tale Ramayana ever since it was announced and Adipurush is certainly above the expectations. The amount of brunt the film faced all this while made it slightly a better watch as compared to what it was touted to be.
Om, who earlier helmed the periodic drama Tanhaji The Unsung Warrior (2020) brings his world of adventure through the widely famous story of good versus evil. He took ample time to reconstruct his own impression that comprises vast VFX, authenticity to the characters, and so on. The film begins with a minute-long disclaimer that requests to avoid any kind of comparisons to the original Ramayana penned by Valmiki.
DIRECTOR OM RAUT'S VISION
Om’s take on Ramayana is interesting enough to sit through for 179 minutes. However, his screenplay is episodic but it is understandable that it’s quite a task for any filmmaker to sum up this huge story in merely a few hours.
Om touches upon powerful introductory scenes of Ram, Ravan, Sita, and Hanuman. Besides this, he throws light on the important chapters like Ravan’s revenge after his sister Shurpanakha’s nose is cut, the first meet of Ram and Hanuman (too emotional), Sita’s kidnapping by Ravan, a few romantic moments between Ram and Sita (done aesthetically), building Ram Setu to get Sita back from Lanka, killing of Jatayu, Sanjeevini Buti and so on.
Om makes a compelling watch catering to kids and youth. Adipurush has a stark resemblance to films made by Marvel and Disney internationally. Although, the usage of the current sound and visual technology is the saving grace of the film. Also, a story like Ramayana is safer to tell with this kind of treatment and atmosphere than a fictional narrative like Brahmastra. Adipurush won’t move any mountains but it happily surpasses as a one-time watch.
DISASTROUS DIALOGUES
Dialogues by Manoj Muntashir are quite a letdown. A series of them are even copied from a set of lines addressed by a popular motivational speaker. There might be no deviation from the original version but dialogues could have echoed that era.
WHO PLAYS WHAT
Prabhas, who plays Lord Ram (Raghav) looks gigantic on screen — could be a 3D effect. A lot of his personality is enhanced due to Sharad Kelkar’s voice. His straight-faced dialogue delivery works in his character’s favour. Kriti as Sita looks pretty, but she has few dialogues throughout. However, she makes one teary-eyed in her emotional scenes. Sunny Singh plays Laxman and does justice to whatever was given to him. He still has a long way to go though but isn’t unbearable either.
Devdatta Nage, a popular Marathi actor, plays Hanuman with conviction, sincerity, and honesty. His dialogues add a lot of humour to the narrative but his accent is quite worrisome. He makes it look believable that he is a Ram devotee.
Saif Ali Khan as Lankesh aka Ravan is laced with swag, style, and flamboyance. He is feisty, and fiery, and exudes evilness. His vehicle Garud could have been better portrayed with good VFX but looks very amateurish.
In fact, the portions of the entire vaanar sena, Sugriv, and Bali could have been much better but the effort can’t be ignored.
Sonal Chauhan has nothing much to do in her two scenes. Vatsal Sheth, who plays Indrajit, is a surprise in Adipurush. He does a good job as an evil son of Ravan. Ajay-Atul’s music is soothing — Ram Siya Ram (in the opening credits), Jai Shri Ram is a perfect song of triumph, and Tu Hai Sheetal Dhara is technically a love song that is pleasant.
Adipurush isn’t that bad of a film, rather it is way above the expectations set by the pre-promotional mood.
