Tevar Movie Review

‘Tevar’, a colloquial Hindi term, translates to style and a person’s signature attitude. Arjun Kapoor’s action flick has loads of ‘tevar’, but flounders on narrative and exhausts you with its length and deafening background score. Yet, it entertains.

Set in the labyrinthine by lanes of Agra & Mathura, ‘Tevar’ soaks in local flavor of warm Indian savouries, the caressing, winter sun of western Uttar Pradesh, and colloquial one-liners. It’s Pintu’s story, a local ‘Kabaddi’ star. As the song in the film states, Arjun Kapoor as Pintu, AKA Ghanshyam, is a local ‘superman’, who bashes up eve teasers in a ratio of 1 to 15. So he mouths catchy lines, then flexes his arms and breaks everything (A bit like Salman Khan, who he serenades as a fan). Accidentally, one fine day, he ends up rescuing a damsel in distress (Sonakshi Sinha as Radhika) who is being eyed amorously by a local political goon (bahuballi), played masterfully by Manoj Bajpai. The ‘bahuballi’ is not your typical villain; he too, has fallen head over heels, and is now set on blood soaked conquest of his maiden. Having accidentally taken on the most powerful local goon with political backing, Pintu swears to go the whole hog in ensuring Radhika leaves for the safe shores of the USA. Thus begin many chaotic, chase sequences, a rather unconvincing hide out location and the blossoming of an understated love.

Arjun Kapoor, charming with a winning smile, has improved many times over as an actor and a movie star. He adapts to the local Agra accent deftly. Sonakshi Sinha does a fine job of falling in love with few words spoken. The winner of course, is Manoj Bajpai, who plays the ‘bahuballi’ with flair and aplomb. Eccentric touches to the film’s character make for hilarious viewing. For instance, Bajpai swears not to put on trousers till her gets his girl after a run in with Pintu, and parades around in boxer shorts with elan. The film’s supporting cast- Deepty Naval, Raj Babbar & Rajesh Sharma- adds value to minor scenes too. I felt that the relationship between father Raj Babbar & Pintu could have been given more depth to make some parts of the narrative more convincing.

Where ‘Tevar’ flounders is it’s endless action sequences, with breaking things, flying people and the ubiquitous sword straight out of a South Indian commercial flick’s fights. These long drawn out scenes slacken the pace of what is essentially a hide and seek story. At times, there’s too much happening on screen at the same time. Some of the songs simply break the narrative’s flow. They are neither easy on the ears, nor on the eyes. 30 minutes shorter, and ‘Tevar’ would have been a pacier, more gripping watch.

One has to take note of the film’s debut director, Amit Ravindarnath Sharma. Real locations bring a story alive with colors, sounds and textures that can’t be recreated digitally or on a set. You can almost smell and touch small town UP in his first film. And he can tell a story, with quirky mannerisms and behavior for all his characters. However, for an ad filmmaker, he did make a pretty long film!

For junta style entertainment, with a story, watch ‘Tevar’. You might not be absolutely floored, but you sure won’t be disappointed.

The Final Verdict

It's worth 60 percent of your ticket price.