Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy review: Gaps in history and cinematic retelling

History is never history on the screen. Its elasticity is well-tested, and reimagined, for the sake of selling a hero – or a story – to the masses. Would there be any scope for rousing background score if the odds were stacked against the antagonists all the time? Cinema, and to a great extent literature, too, work towards a singular goal of making an event memorable by arming the protagonist with fewer weapons. We always want small acts of rebellion to win the war. And we want those acts to come from noble-hearted and selfless heroes.

Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy, directed by Surender Reddy, has Chiranjeevi in the shoes of a warrior who kills at least two men in the blink of an eye. There are several introduction shots and situations in the first half hour that deify Reddy’s (the character, not the director) nature – he redirects a herd of crazed cattle so that it doesn’t jump into a river from atop a hill; he saves a family of three (a mom and two children) from a house that has caught fire; he performs a yajna with a woman whose face he hasn’t seen (she’s his wife, actually) to please the lord of rain.

If you catch one of these incidents in an Indian film, you could call it a drama. But when you’re presented with all of them in the same movie, you’re given no other option other than calling it a biographical drama. There’s nothing wrong with what Surender Reddy’s trying to do here. He’s got a terrific cast (not Amitabh Bachchan, though) on-board and a dialogue writer (Sai Madhav Burra) who knows what’s needed at different junctures of a three-hour long period film. If Burra’s dialogues from Krish’s Gauthamiputra Satakarni (2017) are still remembered, it’s only because of their power. Likewise, Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy’s dialogues will also gain a fan base of their own soon, in Renadu.

Oh, I seem to have come to the portion of Renadu. Now, this is where the actual story begins. Not while Narasimha Reddy is trying to save animals and people from getting injured.

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Renadu is a district where the land-owners and land-tillers stand up against the British and show them the middle-finger. Well, figuratively! There’s a dialogue (it’s in the trailer, too) where Narasimha Reddy angrily asks a British officer why taxes should be paid to them. It’s an important question indeed. But you should remember that this happened a decade before the first war of Indian independence!

Various causes and calls came together in 1857. And forces from several regions in the North joined hands to send the British back to their home country. This Renadu battle in Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy, however, is limited to members from the Telugu and Tamil areas. Avuku Raju (Sudeep), Rajapaandi (Vijay Sethupathi), and Veera Reddy (Jagapati Babu) along with their armies fight alongside Narasimha Reddy.

The conversations that involve the principal characters are pretty cool. As characters they may not bring large numbers of men to revolt against the British. But, as actors, they smoothen the rough edges a bit.

Sudeep, before uttering his lines, takes a pause, looks away from the person with whom he’s having a talk, and, then, begins his speeches. It adds finesse to his arrogance since that’s how his character is shaped. Vijay Sethupathi, even with half a page of dialogues, and a few minutes of screen presence, stands taller than Amitabh Bachchan who makes a saintly appearance every now and then. In hindsight, I think, Tanikella Bharani in Bachchan’s role would have been a better fit. But the makers, perhaps, wanted the tag of the Dadasaheb Phalke awardee to sell the movie to the Hindi markets. Eww, the things that filmmakers have to do to hype up their big-budget motion pictures!

Anyway, Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy plays out more like a piece of historical fiction since its ideas are different from what really unfolded a decade and a half ago. In the 19th century, most of the kingdoms had flags of their own. The patriotic feeling of Bharata maata, including the present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, hadn’t yet trickled down to the commoners (or the Polygars). The film wants you to believe a lot of things, but what’s the percentage of truth in it? When Narasimha Reddy amasses the faith of Renadu folks by winning one battle after another against the White rulers, there’s hope. But how could he have achieved that when Bharata maata itself was divided into numerous provinces back then?

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Moreover, a major section of the foot soldiers in the British army were Indians. In the movie, though, the people pulling the triggers against Narasimha Reddy’s men are predominantly foreigners. This is the gap between history and cinematic retelling.

And, not so surprisingly, the involvement of women is limited. Tamannaah, as a female version of Devdas, is perfect, nevertheless. Lakshmi (Tamannaah) doesn’t drink till the sun begins to rise above the clouds the next day and ruin her life when she realizes that she can’t be with Narasimha Reddy. Instead, she focuses on spreading the word of his rebellion beyond the boundaries of Renadu (with the help of his words of wisdom, of course). But Nayanthara as his wife – named Siddamma – is just a bundle of tears.

Chiranjeevi, who’s essentially playing a character that’s half his age, is fantastic in scenes where there are only dialogues. There’s no doubt about that! But why is he competing with the stars of younger generation? He can do so much more! He can do so much more!