The conceit about gods disguising themselves as commoners to pursue love. Looking back, the reveal makes complete sense.īit by painstaking bit, the grand story comes together, with memories from earlier myths. There’s a great moment towards the end when Bhallala’s father (Nasser) reminds Kattappa where his loyalties lie, and he freezes as though hypnotised. The stretch, therefore, is far more muted than I thought it would be. You cannot violate that just because you want to goose your audience. It left me a bit underwhelmed (in the sense that it’s not slap-on-the-forehead exciting) – but it could not have been any other way, because it’s completely true to who the man is. One might complain that the latter, after playing a significant part in the earlier film, is practically absent in this one – but she could not have been given more to do without breaking the integrity of the story. Another filmmaker would have surely broken the flashback, returned to the present day, and inserted a song sequence between Shivu (Prabhas) and Avanthika (Tamannaah). Rajamouli takes the genre seriously – he doesn’t pander to the audience either. There’s none of that ‘leave your brains at the door, just go have fun’ condescension, and there’s no star-pandering. We tend to lump all our larger-than-life entertainers into the ‘ masala’ category, but Rajamouli sees masala not just as a style but as a legitimate genre, derived from myth. And this is where we see the kind of filmmaker Rajamouli is.
The sequel is more straightforward – it’s one long flashback for the most part – and at least some of my impatience during the early portions was from wanting to know the answer to the whys. Who’s this queen? Who’s this girl covered with butterflies? Who are these cave-dwelling warriors bound by grim purpose? Why does Bhallala Deva (Rana Daggubati) intuit that the loyal Kattappa wants to kill him? And finally, that cliffhanger Part I hit the ground running – there was no setup, just the sight of a queen (Ramya Krishnan’s Sivagami) with an arrow sticking out of her back, a newborn in her hand. But then, most masala movies aren’t breathlessly anticipated sequels either. In most masala movies, some waffling around with romance and comedy is par for the course in the first half, till things start accelerating around the interval point. Part II suffers from a unique disadvantage. Even Kattappa (Sathyaraj) is found hamming it up, as he awaits the “nation wants to know” page in the script.
Amarendra falls for the sword-wielding princess Devasena (Anushka Shetty, who’s very good), while a cowardly royal (Subbaraju) clowns around. But we’re stuck with a rather generic romance/comedy mix.
Rajamouli always finds something fanciful to tuck away into the narrative – like the old world’s equivalent of the girl’s photograph presented to the boy’s family in an arranged-marriage scenario. For a while Baahubali 2: The Conclusion plods along a predictable path. But while peace may be good for the country, it’s bad news for the screenwriter. Mahishmati awaits the coronation of its new king, Amarendra Baahubali (Prabhas). Cast: Prabhas, Anushka Shetty, Rana Daggubati, Ramya Krishnan, Sathyaraj
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