Tiger Nageswara Rao movie review: Interesting narrative style aside, when can we lose the creepy, lewd lead characters?

Director: Vamasi Krishna Naidu, Vamsi Krishna Akella

Cast: Ravi Teja, Murali Sharma, Nassar, Nupur Sanon

‘There are two sides to a story’ is the famous phrase that is used to explain how an incident can play out differently in different people’s perspective. The complete, however is “Remember, there are always two sides to every story. Understanding is a three-edged sword. Your side, their side and the truth in the middle. Get all the facts before you jump to conclusions,” and it was by J Michael. Now Akira Kurosawa played out with this very idea when he made Rashomon. What is fact to you, may very well be fiction to someone else. From an oppressor’s perspective, a fight for rights may be accused of being terrorism. From the perspective of the oppressed, however, it is just their survival instincts kicking in to protect themselves and their loved ones. Over the years, we have read about this equation of the oppressor and the oppressed play out in different contexts — colonialism, slave trade, casteism, classism — and we see it playing out in real life today as well. Sure it is playing out in a part of world that doesn’t seem remotely connected to someone sitting at a aisle seat in a dark theater watching Tiger Nageswara Rao, but trust me, as I watched this film — all of this played out in my head.

This doesn’t mean that the film is a masterpiece. I know, I made some pretty elite references above, but that is just where my mind wandered to as I watched this film. With the interval acting as a beautiful mid-point, the first half of the film unravels through the perspective of DSP Vishwanath Sastry (Murali Sharma), while the latter part of the film unravels through the perspective of Gajjala Prasad (Nassar), who was on Tiger’s side through out his fight against increasing curtail of activity by the government. In the former’s eyes, he was nothing but a criminal, and the latter saw him as nothing but a saviour. The truth, as I had mentioned earlier, lies somewhere in between.

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You see, this Ravi Teja-starrer surprised me. After the last few outings of this actor’s film, my expectation was not too high, yet, the trailer had intrigued me enough to keep an open mind. I am glad I did, because I watched one of the most interesting storytelling techniques play out in the film. But beyond this technique, and the attempt at unravelling the psyche of someone such as Tiger, there was not much for me to enjoy in this film. Technically, or creatively. For starters, the visual effects in the film were subpar. It continually distracted me, and that is unfortunate. Then there is the matter of the women in the film. At some point, a line needs to be drawn on how much is too much when it comes to painting a larger than life character and making him a sexist, misogynistic you-know-what who is celebrated.

To start off with, this film is based on a real life character, and the incidents are supposedly based on ‘real life rumours’ because there are no official accounts detailing Tiger’s life. Tiger belonged to a tribal community that was branded as a criminal tribe by the Britishers. Later, under Indira Gandhi’s regime, the government continued to take action against certain tribes who were accused of continuing criminal activities. In real life, social reformers such as Hemalatha Lavanam worked really hard to change the perspective about such tribes while also bringing to attention the travesty their lives were, their living conditions were. She played a huge role in this regards, but the film doesn’t really care to expand on her achievements. It is not that she doesn’t exist in the cinematic realm. No. Renu Desai plays the role of the reformer in the film, however, she never gets the due that her character deserved. She is sidelined to ensure that Tiger can be championed until the very end.

If we take a look at the other two women — the ones that Tiger is romantically involved with, one is tagged his property, while the other just goes through the motions of loving him. There is no give and take in this relationship at all. You may say that the time that the film is set in directs the character’s notions. However, there is nothing that stops the creators from correcting their gaze.

When I look at the film as a whole, I cannot look past these glaring issues and only indulge in enjoying a good experimental narrative technique. For me, the film just did not come together as it should, because all I could see was a technical problem here, a creepy gaze there.

Rating: 2 (out of 5 stars)

Priyanka Sundar is a film journalist who covers films and series of different languages with a special focus on identity and gender politics.

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