Those who are of a certain vintage like me will remember sitting wondrous-eyed in front of our television sets (which were also of a certain vintage) every Sunday morning to watch Ramayan on Doordarshan. The year was 1987. TV, more so the coloured version, was still not a fixture in all homes, but that didn't deter many from crowding into the homes of neighbours and relatives. Ramayan, brought alive on the small screen with a limited budget but grand storytelling by Ramanand Sagar, was an event. A report in the BBC, many years later, recalled how "streets would be deserted, shops would be closed and people would bathe and garland their TV sets before the serial began".
While most of us who aren't as extreme wouldn't go as far as to worship our TV sets, Ramayan remains, without a doubt, a watershed moment on Indian television. During the Covid-19 lockdown three years ago, Ramayan made a return to Indian TV, and even in the age of streaming platforms experiencing a boom and the Internet available at a click, it garnered record viewership. More than three decades later, Ramayan's look and vibe may feel dated, but its storytelling will remain timeless.
But today, even what is timeless apparently needs an upgrade, an oxymoron that has seen many a retro Hindi movie classic number being sacrificed at the altar of a grating remake or a seemingly evergreen film turned into an unrecognisable, mangled mess. That is what Adipurush is. It takes an epic, pads it up with everything that is loud and lousy, and leaves us with a three-hour-long headache-inducing watch that immediately makes us yearn for a palate cleanser.
The candidate for that palate cleanser could well be a re-read or a rewatch of Ramayan, but for me, it would be a rerun of Bahubali. A prime example of how to seamlessly blend A-level spectacle with A-class storytelling, it takes someone like SS Rajamouli to be able to pad up a film with layers and layers of visual effects and yet never forget that what will work for the audience, at the end of it all, is the beating heart at the core.
It is this beating heart, a strong emotional connect, a feel that should have brought together viewers of all generations to celebrate the retelling of a homegrown epic, that is grossly missing in Adipurush. The purported claim may have been to acquaint Gen-Z with a story that has for centuries epitomised the victory of good over evil, but for that one didn't need to resort to substandard VFX, a listless screenplay and performances ranging from disinterested to over-the-top, to make Ramayan relevant. What it definitely does — sans a few scenes here, a couple of songs there — is make it pretty much an unwatchable slog.
Adipurush, in fact, is a strange beast of a film. In the run-up to release, the makers — led by director Om Raut — have been constantly describing their film as a worthy retelling of the epic and one which upholds the ethos and essence of Valmiki's prose. On the other hand, the disclaimer at the beginning of the film clearly states that Adipurush "does not claim to be a scholarly or religiously authoritative representation of Valmiki Ramayana". In fact, it urges viewers to "read the authentic Ramayana". The disclaimer, as confusing as the rest of the marketing and messaging of Adipurush has been from Day One, made me chuckle. The rest of the film just made me shake my head in disbelief.
Adipurush has come in weighed down by the pressure of religious sentiment and social and political ramifications. This review doesn't intend to even go there, with its primary aim only being to assess the film from the point of view of story and presentation, tone and treatment. Adipurush comes up very, very short in all these departments. And some more.
For starters, Prabhas — despite that towering physicality — seems quite a misfit in the role of Raghav/ Ram. Truth be told, there is hardly a scene in Adipurush, save for a moment or two in the ridiculously long-drawn climax, in which the actor seems to be even vaguely interested in inhabiting the part. The voice isn't his (after Bahubali, Sharad Kelkar dubs for him again) and Prabhas, let down by a character which makes him alternate between spouting spiel and inexplicably levitating, bow and arrow in hand, just doesn't get into the groove.
With the central character so wobbly, it is expected that Adipurush will be weak. What it also turns out to be is a long-winded joke. Characters speak in colloquial Mumbaiyya, Raavan's 10 heads have 'conversations' among themselves, Lanka, guarded by orcs and vampires, is degraded to a bargain-basement version of Gotham, and Saif Ali Khan features in what is probably his worst role in recent memory.
Saif's Lankesh/ Raavan is demonised to the point of becoming a caricature. Looking more like a missing member of a Norwegian punk metal band, Lankesh is bizarrely buffed-up (this one is definitely more than a 56-inch chest), walks with a swagger that ends up looking more like a limp, rides a monstrous dragon-like creature that snarls more than he does and getting massaged by a bunch of pythons is his idea of a rest day. Saif, otherwise a fine actor, can sportingly take a joke, but Adipurush is clearly a cruel one which he seems to have been thrust into with no way out.
And yet, Lankesh is not the worst bit in Adipurush. The eye-watering visual effects, which come into play almost immediately after the opening credits dispense off with the backstory of Raghav, Janki/Sita and Shesh/Lakshman being exiled to the forest for 14 years, hit the audience thick and fast, leaving no room for emotional depth or story build-up. In fact, all of Adipurush feels like a live-action comic book, but one which is executed very, very sloppily. The only redeeming feature is Ajay-Atul's music.
With computer graphics becoming Adipurush's only available crutch, every visual is cranked up with little rhyme or reason. Shesh being revived from the dead by a ritual using the famed sanjeevani booti is framed like some sort of paranormal activity. Sunny Singh — Titu of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety — looks just as inert when he is alive. Lankesh's son Meghnad/ Indrajit (Vatsal Sheth) sports tattoos and dreadlocks and when lighting up Hanuman's (played by Devdutta Nage) tail, tells him: "Jali na... jiski jalti hai woh hi jaanta hain...." Hanuman's retort: "Kapda tere baap ka. Tel tere baap ka. Aag bhi tere baap ki. Toh jalegi bhi tere baap ki." We are all for rebranding and relevance, but these kinds of lines are completely out of sync in a film like this. In another scene, a character walks in and reprimands another with: "Tere bua ka bageecha hai jo ghumne chala aaya? Ab main tujhe dhounga".
In their first meeting, Shesh and Hanuman play a few knock-knock kind of jokes that would make Sara Ali Khan proud. Kriti Sanon as Janki has a perpetual deer-in-the-headlights expression. She was probably the only one who gauged what a disaster Adipurush was going to be. We should have been warned.
I liked/ didn't like Adipurush because... Tell t2@abp.in
