Sports movies where the underdog defies odds to become the reigning champion are usually tear-jerkers riding on the theme that life's drags can be conquered with perseverance.
At the heart of all these movies including a 'Dangal' or a 'Jersey' or closer home in Mollywood, a 'Kho Kho', is raw emotion. Probably not all are a perfect six or a superhit, but are great lesson givers at the end of the day.
Vijay Deverakonda's 'Liger' does not fall in any of these categories, though it revolves around an aspiring MMA champion, whose biggest enemy is stutter.
'Liger' starts with a flashback with an angry-looking Liger, played by Vijay Deverakonda, narrating the struggles in his life, and how his mother (Ramya Krishnan) raised him without any support. At the heart of the story is a girl who becomes a major part of his life.
Romances are not alien to sports dramas. We had a 'Jerry Maguire' which had the right mix of both, and probably it gives more life to such stories. 'Liger' explores this struggle in a dispassionate way, to the point of becoming unbearable.
Why the filmmaker decided to pinpoint the blame on a girl for our aspiring MMA champion's mistakes, is out of comprehension. The rich, silly and spoilt lass with no other evil intention at heart is ‘yakshi’, or demon, for the hero's mother.
That Vijay Deverakonda decided to make his debut in Bollywood with yet another misogynistic storyline portraying women as eye candy, is disheartening. One must remember he had portrayed Arjun Reddy, the character that reeked of masculine toxicity, in the past. His performance was lauded but his choice of film was panned by some. Vijay is a good performer and a star capable of pulling crowds, but he needs to introspect the kind of films and scripts he does, if he truly wants to become the pan-Indian star that he desires to be.
The only silver lining in the story and in Vijay's performance is his stutter, which he pulls off convincingly.
But, probably this is also the reason why the story comes off as unconvincing. Filmmaker Puri Jagannath only highlighted Liger's stammer as his major obstacle. Otherwise, he reminds you of a flawless picture-perfect hero who breezes through life without much struggle.
That Ananya Pandey was okay to be portrayed as a girl starving for the male gaze and social media fame, in her first outing opposite a South Indian actor, does not bode well for an actor who has proved herself as an artiste in the past. Mike Tyson plays a cameo in the film and his appearance manages to draw plenty of claps and whistles from the crowd. Bringing a boxing legend who had potential to be a MMA star does good for the film. But the fantasy ends there. The dialogues and the remaining action sequence does not do enough justice to Mike Tyson who plays Mark Anderson in the film.
Towards the end, the story just goes out of focus. Why the story ends with the protagonist trying to save the damsel in distress instead of winning the world championship he badly wants to attain is lost on the audience. The film attempts to be inspirational at times, like when Liger becomes the bearer of the Indian flag at the world stage, but those scenes don't really don't carry the weight needed to raise the patriot in you.
Ramya Krishnan excels in Liger's mother’s role but the dialogues does not do any justice to her calibre. The dance, songs and costumes are the major attractions in the sports action movie, which purely ends up like a Bollywood masala flick.
