Liger Review: Vijay Deverakonda’s Bollywood Entry is Full of Rage and Stupidity

Director: Puri Jagannath
Writer: Puri Jagannadh, Prashant Pandey
Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Ramya, Ronit Roy, Ananya Pandey

At one point in Liger, Vijay Deverakonda as the titular hero finds himself faced with a gang of violent women criminals. By this time, we've seen him effortlessly beat up large groups of men on multiple occasions so you might think winning is a habit for our hero. However, this time, Liger flails and flops. He can barely get a punch in while the women gang up and attack him with power and precision. By the end of the fight, Liger is left hanging (literally. Thus providing the audience with a dramatic, visual representation of how it feels to have your messages left unread). Take that, all you feminists who took issue with Liger manhandling the heroine during their first meeting, and the love song "Aafat", which suggests consent is a joke.

These aren't the only women who thrash Liger. There's also his mother Balamani, played by a perpetually-furious Ramya who has only one expression in the entire film: A relentless, eye-popping glare that makes it seem as though she's in a staring contest with patriarchy. Either that or she's just shocked at how bad Liger is. At the risk of mixing animal metaphors, writer-director Puri Jagannadh's new film is an underdog story about a top dawg named Liger. We're told early on that Balamani gave him this name because he's a "saala crossbreed", the child of a tiger mom and a gent named "Lion Balaram". It's never made clear what lines Balamani and Balaram crossed, but the product of this seemingly-regular union between a man and woman is a very angry boy, with hair that resembles a mane, and a stammer. We're also told that he's from Varanasi and a chaiwallah. Do with that bit of information what you will. 

Liger's ambition is to be a mixed martial arts (MMA) champion, but his speech impediment holds him back. Even the film uses his stammer as comic relief, before doing an about-face and saying people mocking Liger's disability is justification for him to go on a rampage. Fortunately, the universe is on Liger's side. From a coach who agrees to train Liger for free to a desi American businessman who becomes Liger's sponsor for a major international tournament, solutions present themselves to Liger within seconds of a problem cropping up. 

While it's evident that Liger spent lavishly on its production — there are multiple foreign locations, elaborate sets, and the cost of getting boxing champion Mike Tyson to agree to being pummelled by Deverakonda — it doesn't look like there was any investment in a script. Puri Jagannadh's film might just be the worst in a year filled with cinematic duds (and we're only in August). 

Whether you're a fan of Deverakonda or one of those optimists who wants a fun night at the movies, Liger is a series of disappointments. It's badly written, shoddily edited; the action is boring, the acting is worse; and Deverakonda doesn't lose his shirt until after interval. The actor also turns stammering into such a parody that if there's an association of stammerers, they are well within their rights to boycott Liger. Somewhere under the heap of fight sequences that rely more on sound design for dramatic effect than good choreography, there's also an attempt at a love story. The rowdy beast of a boy falls in love with a spoilt little rich girl, which might have been interesting if Ananya Pandey's Tanya wasn't also the classic bimbette. Tanya is a more persuasive argument in favour of misogyny than anything mens' rights' activists have come up with so far. It doesn't help that Deverakonda and Pandey have about as much chemistry as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has with the surrounding ocean. There's more sizzle in the moment when Deverakonda reaches out and wraps his hand around the neck of his coach, played by Ronit Roy. Roy, eyes glittering, growls, "I like that." Easy, Liger. 

In the past decade, mainstream Telugu movies have played a key role in defining ideals of Indian masculinity and articulating the anxieties of men who feel marginalised (despite forming the majority). Unlike the old Bollywood hero who flaunted his six-pack as an aesthetic feature, the Tollywood-inspired, new grammar presents the muscular male body only as a weapon and Liger is very much a part of this discourse.

In a recent interview with critic Baradwaj Rangan, Deverakonda said he wants to make "review proof cinema" and build a relationship with his audience that doesn't depend on the opinions of critics, whom the actor described as "outside noise". This is ironic because the only people who may be able to make Deverakonda's new film seem interesting are those with a critical bent who want to analyse what lies under the rubbish heap that is the plot and filmmaking of Liger. In the past decade, mainstream Telugu movies have played a key role in defining ideals of Indian masculinity and articulating the anxieties of men who feel marginalised (despite forming the majority). Unlike the old Bollywood hero who flaunted his six-pack as an aesthetic feature, the Tollywood-inspired, new grammar presents the muscular male body only as a weapon and Liger is very much a part of this discourse. We're not to view Liger or his body as something that gives or receives pleasure, but as a weapon of power. So Liger stays clothed and contained in the love story sections of the film, but when he's in the ring as a fighter, he strips down to near-nudity and determinedly thrusts his crotch, using that simulation of sex to indicate his dominance over opponents. On one hand, this deliberately-crude gesture is a rejection of social hierarchies because it seems to turn its back on what is considered 'classy' and sophisticated. At the same time, the object of the hero's desires is a rich woman who embodies all the privilege that is denied to the hero because of his social status. There's a clash of values here and most of the time, the films bury it under the sop of a contrived happy ending.. 

We'll know whether Puri Jagannadh's film has a happy ending in real life when the box office collections for its opening weekend come in, but irrespective of its earnings, there's a poverty in the imagination and the storytelling of Liger that is disappointing. Mass entertainers are supposed to be fun and inventive. They're supposed to respect the audience's time and money. Instead, we've been given a saala crossbreed that's all about stupidity and rage.