Director: Puri Jagannadh
Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Ananya Panday, Ramya Krishnan, Vish, Mike Tyson, Ronit Bose Roy and others
Where: In theatres near you
Rating: 1 star
With the newly arrived ‘pan-India’ culture, it seems like films are getting worse each Friday. Puri Jagannadh, who is best known for his massy entertainers in Telugu industry brings yet another film titled Liger which is far from the entertainment quotient. Touted as a much anticipated action venture, the film is nowhere close to even a bearable watch.
Liger (Vijay Deverakonda) migrates to Mumbai from Benaras, along with his mother Balam (Ramya Krishnan) and sells tea to run his livelihood. An aspiring MMA artist, who prominently stammers, he seeks help from JKD (Ronit Bose Roy), a celebrated coach only to fulfil the dreams of his dead father, who was the national champion years ago. But his aim fizzles out just after he falls in love with a popular social media influencer Tanya (Ananya Panday). Will he win the national championship or lose everything for his true love?
Director Puri, who surprisingly comes from the most literacy rate region of our country, conveniently objectifies women throughout his film. In the name of infusing humour in the sloppy screenplay, he made his characters speak dialogues like ‘ladkiyan to chudail hoti hai’ and what is more cringy is that Ananya being the female protagonist of the film is okay with being body shamed in almost every scene. This could be the best reference point of sexism in our films.
In 2022, Puri seems to believe that to impress the audiences, the very famous ‘maa logic’ is enough, who is addressing her fighter son with ‘Uth naa saale’ after he is badly beaten up by the opponent in the ring. Liger’s plot boils down to getting the ‘chudail’ in the end — that’s what Ananya is termed as at least in the first half. The treatment of the film resembles that of a cringy dubbed film that airs throughout the day on the channel best known to the whole nation. Even Sooryavansham has a great recall value!
Puri’s film has possibly everything regressive to offer. From ‘Agar tune mere paise nahin diye to main teri beti ko maar dunga’ to fighting the gigantic Mike Tyson (in a special cameo) just to get the ‘chudail’ back, Liger is nothing but a piece of crap. The most hilarious thing is Chunky Panday, the real life daddy dearest to Ananya, plays her reel life father too. A treat of ‘pasta’ is waiting for you all!
Vijay is a national crush, isn’t he? Anyway, he is decent with his fight sequences, he even looks hot with his chiselled body, brown bouncy curls and somehow manages to look droolworthy in the songs. Ananya ‘Pan’day is strictly avoidable, Ramya Krishnan is lousy and Chunky Panday goes unnoticed. Can anyone tell Mike Tyson that he has made a fool out of himself? Vish, who merely has screen presence as an antagonist till the interval (best part of 140 mins of runtime) is atrocious. Ronit Bose Roy is the most realistic actor amongst this ensemble.
Puri’s Liger is an absolute yawn fest. You’d be better off watching any popular dubbed South film on your television sets accompanied with a homemade ‘rasam’.
