Tevar

Reason not to pay particular attention to star ratings: This is probably not as good a movie (in some ways) as Taken 3, but it didn't make me as angry as that one did. Maybe being colorful and having catchy songs helps more than you'd think.

Tevar

* ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 January 2015 in Regal Fenway #7 (first-run, DCP)

There is a lot of bloat in Tevar, a 157-minute Bollywood "thriller" that could be remade as a direct-to-video action flick roughly half that length without particularly suffering for the revision. It's all well and good to have different paces and styles of movie out there, but a film that takes this much time should do something with it.

It starts by introducing Granshyam "Pintu" Shukla (Arjun Kapoor), a nominal student in Agra with little interest in anything but the kabaddi team, and he has to make a parkour-style run across town to not totally miss his game. His laziness doesn't keep him out of fights, though, much to the chagrin of his policeman father (Raj Babbar). Meanwhile, in Mathura, hugely corrupt Home Minister Mahender Singh (Rajesh Sharma) has instructed his "strongman" brother Gaherder (Manoj Bajpayee) to threaten troublesome reporter Manesh Mishra, only for him to become smitten with Mishra's younger sister Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha). She refuses, and when Gaherder does not take the news well, her family decides to expedite her travels to America. Gaherder catches up to her at the bus station, but Pintu also happens to be there, taking exception to seeing a woman get roughed up.

That's a fairly basic setup, which is fine; no need to reinvent the wheel in what is both a tried-and-true premise for this sort of thriller and the fourth remake of a 2003 Telugu-language film. But because it's so familiar, there really is no reason for it to take practically until the intermission for Pintu and Radhika to actually meet and start running. Sure, some time is killed with musical numbers that look fairly nice, even if they do go on a long time for the single points they make, but that only helps so much when the filmmakers are just loading up on side characters who will have no effect on the outcome. The first half of Tevar, as a result, doesn't necessarily feel long as one is watching it; but seeing how far it hasn't gotten is dispiriting.

Full review at EFC.