‘The Paradise’ movie review: An emotionally distant, epic misfire starring Nani

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The Paradise begins by paying tribute to some of the Indian cinema legends we have lost in recent times. It also remembers revolutionary Telangana poet Gummadi Vittal Rao, better known as Gaddar. It is director Srikanth Odela’s way of tipping his hat to his Telangana roots and the region’s textured history.

In his debut, Dasara, also starring Nani, Srikanth explored caste hierarchies around Telangana’s coal mines during the era of prohibition, weaving a tale of friendship, loss and revenge. It wasn’t a perfect film, but it established its emotional conflicts well.

With his second collaboration with Nani, The Paradise, the stakes are higher. Within the familiar template of an underdog hero rising against powerful oppressors, Srikanth raises questions of identity, voting rights and the existential crisis of a fictional marginalised community.

The effort that has gone into building a fictional world set in Secunderabad’s Paradise locality in the 1980s is evident on screen, with a grunge-meets-dystopian visual aesthetic, cinematography by Ch. Sai, and symbolism contrasting lowly crows with preying eagles. There is plenty of rage, violence and desperate cries for help from voices hoping to be heard. What the film lacks, though, is the emotional heft to translate its ambitious ideas into an absorbing narrative.

Srikanth expects the audience, swiftly transported into this dystopian setting, not to question how the plight of a tribe called Savaari, supposedly settled in the heart of Secunderabad, could go unnoticed by the administration. This is not a remote village off the radar. There are references to famed Paradise biryani, the retro-themed Liberty Cafe and other Secunderabad and Hyderabad landmarks. Yet the film never convincingly establishes the tribe’s history or plight enough to make us invest in their journey.

The broad template of powerful men tormenting a community and an uprising against them is as old as the hills. In post-millennial Telugu cinema, prominent examples include SS Rajamouli’s Chatrapathi and Vikramarkudu. These were not perfect films either, and some portions may not have aged well, but they had enough emotional heft to make their stories work.

In an early scene in The Paradise, a heavily pregnant young woman leads the Savaari tribe to an administrative office, raising slogans about their identity. We see the visuals, hear the cries and yet don’t identify with them. The introduction of antagonist Shikanja Maalik (veteran actor Mohan Babu), and the inhuman treatment meted out to the pregnant woman, are brutal, yet something feels amiss. Is it the repetitive use of emotionally manipulative scenes in action dramas, or a failure of storytelling? The question lingered through the film.

The childhood portions of the protagonist, Jadal (Nani), named for his plaits, fare better. The expletive tattooed on his forearm and the reason he unabashedly sports plaits have some significance.

The moody black-and-brown visuals of the Savaari tribe, contrasted with the opulence of Shikanja Maalik and his son Vikram (Raghav Juyal), also feel stereotypical, given the number of action dramas set in similarly eccentric worlds.

When a film fails to establish its premise and draw us in, little can salvage it. Several characters who might have seemed radical or interesting on paper, played by Kayadu Lohar, Sampoornesh Babu, Easwari Rao, Mohan Babu and Raghav Juyal, fail to make the desired impact. The less said about some of these characters, the better. The butterfly motif around Kayadu’s character seems pointless, while the line about her being a “one-take artist” ends up being unintentionally hilarious, apart from being deeply troublesome.

The only characters that merit attention are those played by Nani and Sonali Kulkarni. Sonali’s arc is largely predictable, but she is sincere in her portrayal. Nani shakes off his man-next-door image with the physical transformation required for the role, but in the absence of a well-written script, he appears rather lost. At least Dasara and HIT 3 gave him something to chew on. For one of the most versatile actors in present-day Telugu cinema, The Paradise feels like a misstep.

The pre-intermission sequence, the ‘Aaya Sher’ song and a conversation between Sonali and Nani are among the few moments when The Paradise holds interest. The rest is a test of endurance. Anirudh Ravichander’s music cannot salvage the dull narrative.

Certain portions also feel hurriedly put together, with rapid editing shifts and underwhelming sound mixing that makes some dialogue barely audible. These could be attributed to the post-production rush to meet the release deadline. Had the writing been stronger, such glitches would have been easier to overlook.

The Paradise is also liberal with its violence. By now, habitual mainstream moviegoers may have become immune to visuals of heads and limbs being chopped off. This film takes it further, with close-up shots of violence inflicted in increasingly graphic ways, including an electric shock administered to a heavily pregnant woman. Several shots made me turn away from the screen, but they did not make me feel for the characters.

Again, the problem lies in the narrative’s failure to establish its world and characters effectively. Cameos inspired by real-life political leaders K Chandrasekhar Rao and NT Rama Rao do little to redeem the underwhelming story.

The film also left me with a few questions, particularly about the lifespan of a dog and why the tribe supposedly carries a foul odour, which they ward off with agarbathis.

Had The Paradise been written better, it could have been an interesting conflict between a protagonist who wants his tribe to lead a respectable life in independent India — and enjoy hearty biryani, of course — and a man thirsting for political power and eager to step out of his father’s shadow. What exists now is a massive misfire.

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