The Paradise REVIEW: Nani’s Star Power, Raghav Juyal’s Screen Presence Cannot Save This Actioner

Film:
The Paradise

Director: Srikanth Odela

Writer: Srikanth Odela, Vinay Sagar Jonnala

Cast: Nani, Mohan Babu, Kayadu Lohar, Sonali Kulkarni, Raghav Juyal

Runtime: 174 Minutes (2 Hours, 54 Minutes)

Platform: In Theatres

The Paradise Review

The makers of The Paradise released a teaser and skipped the trailer and now, after watching the Hindi version of the Nani-led period actioner, I seem to understand why. Set in 1980s in the fictional town of Secunderabad, Srikanth Odela’s film tells the world about the plight of the Savari community – a marginalised group, who despite being part of India’s Independence struggle are still fighting for identity, dignity and recognition.

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The film begins before the birth of Jadal (Nani). Born in the marginalised community, he’s only know grief from a very young age thanks to his people being controller by the powerful and unjust Shikanja Malik (Mohan Babu). After being jailed as a juvenile for 14 years, Jadal returns to his community and finds them still being ill-treated by everyone who curries favours from Shikanja and Vikram Malik (Raghav Juyal). and his son, over a period of time finds love and become the backbone of his people in getting them what they want the most – being treated as humans and getting neutralised as citizens of India. But what

As resentment against this oppressive grows under leadership of Jadal’s mother, Samakka (Sonali Kulkarni), Jadal is gradually pulled into the rebellion that soon turns bloodier than when Ranvijay Singh went on a killing spree in Animal. As old wounds reopen, people breath their first and last and love blossoms, the audience get to see what the poor go through when the powerful control them and influence the law of the area.

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But is The Paradise worth watching in theatres? Read our honest review to know the answer.

What Works

CH Sai’s cinematography and Anirudh Ravichander’s music (in certain sequences) are the only saving graces, even then, the film feels unbearable.

What Doesn’t Work

The excessive gore and violence. Yes, we have watched violent films in the past – and even liked/loved a few, but that doesn’t mean we want a biryani of mutilated human body parts with a side of blood and brain raita. Also, why are they obsessed with torturing pregnant woman?

Also, CBFC, if you permitted the showing of skulls being smashed, throats being sawed, heads & other body parts flying around and blood flowing like a river, you should have allowed the swear words to be used too. The sudden silence (though welcomed) was disturbing and making the audience loose attention even more.

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Technical Analysis

Story, Screenplay & Dialogues

Srikanth Odela’s story while trying to show women as strong characters turns out to be a narrative about torture, mommy issues, revolution, and a hero being possessed by a god to avenge his people. The Paradise while ultimately being the story of an underdog finding himself and then taking a stand against powerful oppressors, is a stretched tale of that also raises questions of identity, voting rights and problems faced by marginalised communities.

But is it impressive? No. The screenplay by Odela and Vinay Sagar Jonnala is just too much to handle. It’s one troupe after and other. It seems so lengthy than you need an interval 30 minutes before the interval is schedule to happen. Not just the lengthy narrative but even the manner in which it’s written seems done and duster. Like when Jadal learns martial arts, it reminds you of Karate Kid or his confrontation with Mohan Babu’s Malik, this fight seems like the climax action sequence of Baaghi.

The dialogues penned by Thota Srinivas, Madhava Murthy, Bojanapu Arjuna, Paturi Vamshi, Krishna Pinnika, Manupati Karunakar and Vasanth Masadi maybe good, but the manner in which they were presented to the Hindi-viewing audience in bad.

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Cinematography

CH Sai’s cinematography is the best part of this film. If you are watching this film, this is the only thing that will distract you enough not to fall asleep. The framing, the lighting, the camera angles and shots, they are all on-point.

Editing

Sitting in the theatres for nearly 3 hours – without counting the interval time, is too much. Naveen Nooli’s editing while commendable at points should have been more crisp. The runtime should have been closer to the 150-minute mark and not the 180-minute one. Another complain, Nooli sir, we know people do not wait to see the end credits but that doesn’t mean that you have them run at such a speed that you cannot read a single name. That’s disrespectful to every person whose name was in that list.

Not Naveen’s mistake, but the dubbing! It’s bad. It doesn’t go in sync with what’s happening on screen or what the the characters are feeling. The pitch, the emotions – they seem out of place.

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Music

Anirudh Ravichander’s music almost always hits the bullseye, and with The Paradise, his arrow lands in the red circle of the target. The background score is good, but in Hindi version it’s so loud that you can’t hear the dialogues. The lengthy runtime makes you wish you had a fast forward button to skip the songs – not because they are bad but because you want to leave the theatres soon.

Cast

The performances fail to impress and that’s not because of the actors but the manner in which the characters are written, treated and presented to public.

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Talking about Nani, there is nothing natural about the ‘Natural Star’ in The Paradise. He shown to be reckless and over the top and there’s no problem with that – we expect it. But makers, make it a little believable. Nani has done his best but his star power and efforts are overshadowed and buried under the tons of violence and blood.

Raghav Juyal’s character wears a ton of gold in the movie, alas the manner in which the character is written and brought to life fails to shine, even like 12K gold. The only time he shined is when his character does a little dance.

Kayadu Lohar as Subbalakshmi aka Subbu is refreshing to watch on the big screen. She shines bright and does a good job, even when she shares screen space with Nani. Sonali Kulkarni as Samakka is formidable. While she’s a strong woman who takes a stand for her community, you wish you knew more about her struggles (but then you wish you don’t given the amount of torture her character undergoes).

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Mohan Babu as Shikanja Malik is bland. His character is written as someone to be feared but then manner in which he’s presented is just like an egoistic, classist landlord who doesn’t want the poor to rise. The support characters – especially the one with four legs, are good. But the lengthy story makes you want them to wrap their drama and move on.

Conclusion

Give The Paradise a miss. Even if you are a Nani fan, there is a 90% chance you will be disappointed and it’s not because of him. The actors have done the best that they could with an outdated (even for a period actioner) script that focuses more on blood and gory than emotions and character arcs.

Watch the teaser of The Paradise here:

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Grinell Jacinto

With nearly 10 years of experience, Grinell Esther Jacinto is the Desk Head of Bollywood Bubble. Her interests lie in everything that is kaleshi and she loves to dig deeper into the lives of B-town actors. She has a problem though – she loves horror films but will have chills the minute the theatres lights dims. She’s previously worked with Koimoi, UrbanAsian and SpotboyE.