Tevar review: Arjun Kapoor does a backslide to his ‘Gunday-Ishaqzaade’ mode

Right from its opening frames, ‘Tevar’ makes you a couple of promises : that it will be violent, vicious and crude; and that it will do nothing new. On both counts, that is exactly what it delivers. Same old biff bang thud, covered by blood, bones and mud.

It is set in Agra, and  neighbouring Mathura. We know this because we keep getting shots of the Taj Mahal. And the word ‘launda’ pops up every time someone opens their mouth. And that , as people who know the Brijbhoomi well will testify, is a genuine part of the local lingo. For everything else you can blame the Telugu original, whose faithful remake ‘Tevar’ is.

(Read: Sonakshi Sinha, Arjun Kapoor’s ‘Tevar’ releases today, will it survive the ‘PK’ juggernaut?)

Pintu (Arjun Kapoor) is an ‘Agrey ka launda’. And Gajender (Manoj Bajpayee) is a ‘Mathurey ka goonda’. The former is a laybout but clean of heart; the latter is a bad, bad guy. The third angle of this triangle is the lovely Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha). The film is set up as a series of confrontations between the ‘launda’ and his friends, and the ‘goonda’ and his goons, where every sort of weapon is brandished: ‘talwaar, lathi, churi, chakoo, bandook’. The idea is to keep the red stuff flowing. And the body count climbing.

(Read: Five Reasons you must watch Sonakshi Sinha-Arjun Kapoor’s ‘Tevar’)

The plot makes summary space for sundry relatives- and-friends of the two : Gajender has a ‘bada bhai’ (Rajesh Sharma) who is a properly corrupt local ‘neta’ ; Pintu, whose only skill lies in kayoing his kabaddi opponents, has a papa who is an honest cop (Raj Babbar). Deepti Naval shows up briefly as the ‘hero ki maa’,  there is also a ‘chulbuli hero ki behen’. And  also, before I forget, the ‘hero-ke-dost’ : one plump guy, two regular, whose only job is to buoy the fellow. A couple of nice sequences have a few nice lines, distributed amongst these characters, and you can see the dialogue writer straining for freshness.

(See Pics: Varun Dhawan watches Sonakshi, Arjun’s ‘Tevar’)

But we all know that these are mere sideshows. The main action lies between the two guys, and the girl. Sonakshi Sinha plays the sort of standard leading lady fixture who  is made to dance and smile and cry, and ricochet  between the male actors. It is something she can probably do in her sleep, given the number of South remakes she’s done.  At this rate this actor-with-potential is in real danger of becoming wallpaper.

(Read: Arjun Kapoor: From Ishaqzade to Tevar, this Kapoor lad has impressed all)

After surprising us agreeably  with some nice drollery in ‘Finding Fanny’, Arjun Kapoor  does a backslide to his ‘Gunday-Ishaqzaade’ mode.  He does the action bits well enough, but his voice is still reedy. It lacks roar.  It is Manoj Bajpayee who brings ‘asli dum’ to this utterly predictable, loud, done-to-death ‘Violent Love Story’. He’s done all of this before—the leering, the jeering, the dialogue delivery– but he does it with full zest. I wouldn’t like to meet his character coming down a dark street .