Liger Deverakonda Dazzles In A Dimwitted  Drama

Liger

Starring  Vijay Deverakonda, Ananya Pandey,Ramya Krishnan, Makarand Deshpande, Mike Tyson

Directed  by Puri Jagannadh

Rating: * ½

There are many reasons why the viewer feels sorry for himself while  watching this shoddy homage to Bruce Lee’s yesteryears’  feasts of fury. There is a big poster of  the legendary Lee  in the gym where  our hero trains for Mix Martial Arts . I felt sorry  for poor Lee for being seen anywhere  in this  scream of  a screen scheme.

 But I felt  sorriest for the  globally  honoured  boxer Mike Tyson. They   have changed his  name  to Mike Anderson and made him a criminal who kidnaps  Ananya Pandey and then  gets bashed up by  Vijay Deverakonda(VD).

Seriously. Liger is  the  kind of cinema that brings  a bad name to cinema. It is fun to begin with. Early scenes of  VD training with guru  Ronit Roy with his mother monitoring every move including any activity in his son’s love/sex life, communicate a  feeling of  frisky  masti. But somehow   it all comes to nought ,a spiral downwards that writer-director Puri Jagannadh  seems incapable  of controlling.

Forget any sign of  restrain, Puri seems  to  have no idea where the plot’s  upper torso ends  and the rectum begins.  This is a  film  for the idiots by the  idiots. The actors are largely  hams with Ramya  Krishnan taking the cake. She is  constantly loud  and  overbearing . VD tries every time  to calm her down. But the lady is angry.And why not?

 VD  remains the one connection with sanity in this creepy cheesy carnival  of lunacy. Nothing  makes sense, least of all the  screenplay which is crammed with  cramping campy corny  situations   , like Chunky Pandey, in  a case study of  crossbred nepotism , shows  up as his own daughter’s father lording over Las Vegas as a biryani  version of  an affluent NRI.

More corn? Coming up. Watch Mike Tyson turn up as some kind of Crazy Joe  who loves to fight. Why is Tyson a part of this  screwball  film about a Lion-Tiger who changes sports  and becomes a  ransom negotiator when Ananya  Pandey is kidnapped. Anyone who  kidnaps her needs  all our  best wishes.

Amidst the hamming , heaving and heavy lifting Deverakonda shows off his admirable  fighting and dancing skills. It’s like playing the  piano in  a room filled with tone-deaf  revelers high on  hooch. Spare  yourself this ordeal unless you are a diehard Deverakonda fan.