‘Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire’ review: A hackathon that tries too hard to shock

K.G.F director Prashant Neel’s new movie is an ultraviolent vendetta drama – that’s a description, not a judgement. Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire is a bombastic, bottom-punishing hackathon that begins in the 1980s and continues into the recent past but appears to be taking place centuries ago.

The copious blood-letting and beheadings surely date to the Viking era, or the unnamed period in which the Middle Ages-inspired fictional series Game of Thrones was set. Neel’s film revolves around a power grab too, which gives a semblance of an organising principle to a chaotic, confusing set of events.

Part 1 is set in Khansaar, a fictional walled kingdom tucked between Kutch and Pakistan on the map. Khansaar is a country unto itself, with its own constitution, a king and a private army.

Deva (Prabhas) and Khansaar’s heir apparent Varada (Prithviraj Sukumaran) are devoted to each other as children. Deva protects Varada’s honour more fiercely than his own. In a film less obsessed about proving its stereotyped machismo, the bond between Deva and Varada could have been described as love.

In his adulthood, Deva and his controlling mother (Easwari Rao) are in hiding. It’s a sad life that understandably makes Deva morose. His only friends are school kids, while his diet consists of rice and...

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