Review: Devaraya - histrorical distortion

Krishnadevaraya is an important figure in southern India. If there is some facet of him which is unknown to us, revealing it will improve our understanding of history.

But to pick up on a trivial half-baked story shrouded in superstition and presenting it as a new discovery will do nothing, but engulf Krishnadevaraya's legacy in myth. That's exactly what 'Devaraya' does.

A major drawback of the film is that both halves of the film are as different as chalk and cheese. Dora Babu (Srikanth) is a playboy philanderer living in a village on the banks of the Godavari. He drinks, gambles and lusts after women with his group of cronies.

One day, a girl called Swapna (Vidisha) enters the village. Dora Babu goes after her too. But soon, he realises that it's different with her and falls in love.

Swapna's father is a historian, Telugu scholar and a stickler to morals and traditions. He rejects their marriage. Depressed, Dora Babu gets drunk and stumbles across an old monument, which some goons are trying to destroy it to make way for a factory.

Some divine energy comes over him, and he beats them up. It is revealed that Dora Babu is a reincarnation of sorts of Krishnadevaraya.

In a flashback, we see that Krishnadevaraya falls in love with a dancer, Sunanda (Meenakshi Dixit), from the banks of Godavari. In a bid to impress her, Krishnadevaraya accidentally destroys the shrine of a Goddess inside a temple.

The only way to make up for the sin is to reinstall the shrine at an auspicious time while sacrificing his life at the same time. In the process of doing so, he is attacked by his enemies. This breaks the ritual, and the duty remains incomplete.

Now, it is up to Dora Babu to complete it. Whether he perishes or comes out unscathed forms the ending. Unfortunately, the climax is worse and even more confusing.

The first half is solely about Dora Babu, and the story doesn't go anywhere. When the story does start moving in the second half, you find that there is not much of it.

You cannot empathise with the characters, mainly because they are not doing much by themselves.

Everything is happening according to divine fate. There is too much unnecessary skin show and too many listless songs, so that when Dora Babu as Krishnadevaraya lectures about the sacredness of classical dance and the importance of Telugu traditions, you wonder why the filmmaker did not follow the advice while making the film.

Srikanth turns in a measured performance, but there is too much posturing when he is Krishnadevaraya.

The two heroines are used for nothing much else than dancing around and showing skin. But the biggest weakness of the film is lack of content.

A little more research, and a little more use of logic while connecting the dots would have made this film a breath of fresh air.

A film, like a temple, needs many pillars to stand upon. This one has one strong pillar (sleaze) and one weak one (the Krishnadevaraya story). Consequently, it collapses upon itself.