TEVAR

Eros International, Next Gen Films, Sanjay Kapoor Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., MAD Studios and Naresh Agarwal Films’ Tevar (UA) is a violent love story. Pintu Shukla (Arjun Kapoor) lives in Agra with his police inspector-father, SP Satyaprakash Shukla (Raj Babbar), mother (Deepti Naval) and sister, Pinky (Gunjan Malhotra). He loves kabbaddi and is a champion at that game. But other than that, he wastes his time and generally indulges in fights and fisticuffs when he sees someone doing wrong. His father is quite concerned about this and keeps reprimanding him.

In Mathura lives a girl, Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha), with her parents and brother. The family is keen to send her to the USA for further studies. Gajender Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), brother of home minister Mahender Singh (Rajesh Sharma), happens to see Radhika one day and he falls head over heels in love with her. He meets Radhika with a marriage proposal which is turned down by her as she doesn’t even know him. Gajender Singh, a killer, hooligan and uncouth man, kills Radhika’s brother when the latter warns him to keep away from his sister. This accelerates the pro­cess of Radhika’s parents sending her away to the USA, as they fear for her safety.

One day, Pintu goes to Mathura with three of his friends, to attend a wedding. There, he sees Radhika being literally dragged forcefully by Gajender Singh. Pintu takes Radhika away from Gajender Singh and his cronies and escapes with her. Before escaping, Pintu teaches them a lesson by ensuring that Gajender Singh and his goons take their pants off. Of course, Pintu so far is not aware that Gajender Singh is the brother of home minister Mahender Singh. Gajender Singh vows not to wear his pants again, till he gets Radhika back.

Radhika tells Pintu that she had been caught by Gajender Singh at the bus stand in Mathura, from where she was going to Delhi to collect her passport duly visa-stamped by the American Embassy.

Pintu brings Radhika to his home in Agra and hides her there without telling his parents, as his father is in the police. Meanwhile, Satyaprakash Shukla and all the other police officers of towns and cities close to Mathura, are summoned to Mathura by the home minister who asks them to track Radhika down and hand her over to him. Satyaprakash Shukla gets the shock of his life when he realises, quite by chance, that Radhika is staying right in his house.

Before Satyaprakash Shukla can hand Radhika over to Mahender Singh, Pintu runs away with her. His only mission is to ensure that she boards the plane to the USA. Here, Radhika has fallen in love with Pintu and his selflessness. But Gajender Singh and his goons prove to be too smart and they succeed in taking away Radhika, once Pintu is arrested by his own father.

What happens next? Is Pintu able to release Radhika from Gajender Singh’s captivity? Or does Radhika have to marry Gajender Singh? Is Pintu successful in sending Radhika away to the USA? Or does Radhika tell Pintu that she loves him?

Gunashekhar’s story is oft-repeated and uni-dimensional. The film, which is a remake of the Telugu hit, Okkadu, seems like a film made in the early nineties with not even a hint of novelty. It reminds of Kisna. The screenplay, written by Shantanu Srivastava and Amit Ravindernath Sharma is oft-repeated and lacks novelty. Besides, the pace of the drama is so leisurely that it gives the audience many occasions to feel bored, at times terribly. Individual scenes are a bit too long and, therefore, become monotonous. Probably, the dullest parts of the screenplay are the emotional and the romantic tracks. The romance between Radhika and Pintu doesn’t really gladden the heart and the emotional scenes fail to make the audience cry or even empathise with the characters, perhaps, because the drama moves on a predictable path and, therefore, has little to surprise or shock. Action and violence are excessive and will put off womenfolk. But the same action is a plus point for the masses and front-benchers. Comedy is almost conspicuous by its absence. Climax is shockingly abrupt as the person least expected to do the honours does it and that makes Pintu look less of a hero. Shantanu Srivas­tava’s dialogues are routine and ought to have been far more punch-packed.

Arjun Kapoor does well in action scenes but needs to greatly improve in light and dramatic scenes. His expressions remain the same and don’t seem to vary according to the demands of the scenes. Sonakshi Sinha is sincere in her performance but gets limited scope. Also, the audience is bored of watching her in the same kind of roles. Manoj Bajpayee is the best in the film. He plays to the gallery and does a fine job. Raj Babbar performs ably. Deepti Naval is effective but hardly gets any scope. Subrat Dutta is natural as Gajender Singh’s sidekick, Kakdi. Rajesh Sharma makes his presence felt as Mahender Singh. Gunjan Malhotra is superb in the role of Pintu’s sister, Pinky. She is so natural that it is a delight to watch her perform. Bhuvan Arora, Pranav Verma and Tushar Pandey lend fair support as the three friends of Pintu. Shantanu Srivastava is alright as the bulky police officer. Shruti Haasan adds glamour in a song-dance. Mahendra Mewati, Vinod Jaywant, V.K. Sharma, Aruna Shetty, Deepak Sharma, Bhagwan Tiwari, Jagraj Ghooman, Rajeev Yadav, Syoji Ram Choudhari, Dharmendra Singh and the others provide ordinary support.

Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s direction is fairly good. Although the drama is of the kind one has seen in the films of the 1990s, the narrative style is modern. Music (Sajid-Wajid; and Imran Khan for the ‘Celebrate’ song) is very good. ‘Main hoon Superman’, ‘Madamiya’ and ‘Joganiya’ are very appealing songs and come as a whiff of fresh air, in the film. The ‘Celebrate’ song is also entertaining. Lyrics (by Kausar Munir, Danish Sabri, Sajid and Imran Khan) are very nice. The song picturisations (by Remo D’Souza) of ‘Madamiya’, ‘Superman’ and ‘Celebrate’ songs are appealing. Clinton Cerejo’s background music goes well with the drama and the mood of the film. Laxman Utekar’s cinematography is very nice. Sham Kaushal’s action and stunt scenes are alright but they will appeal only to the single-screen cinema audience; the multiplex audience will be put off by the excessive action and violence and also by the stylised stunts. Aparna Sud’s sets are of a good standard. The sets in the ‘Madamiya’ and ‘Celebrate’ songs have been designed by Urvee and Shipra, and they are also good. Dev Rao Jadhav’s editing is fairly nice. Production and other technical values are very good.

On the whole, Tevar has less-than-ordinary merits and will, therefore, not do anything substantial at the box-office. Its lovely music and abundant action are its plus points whereas a dated subject and painfully slow pace are its minus points. Business in multiplexes will be shockingly poor. Losing.