Peddi possibly started out as the simple, straight-forward account of a poor labourer using his sporting talent to help his community. But since this story has been told many times before, the makers of Peddi went in for addition and then multiplication.
Made in Telugu and also dubbed in Hindi, Buchi Babu Sana’s Peddi is several plotlines packed into one narrative.
Peddi (Ram Charan) excels at cricket even as he battles his circumstances. Peddi belongs to a village with no name, whose residents are all undocumented and severely exploited. Yet, Peddi has managed to acquire an enviably muscular body and bravura batting skills.
Peddi is snapped up by the small-town equivalent of the Indian Premier League. He also falls for Achiyamma (Janhvi Kapoor), the daughter of a local politician. Correction: Peddi initially falls first for Achiyamma’s waist, without even seeing her face.
So far, so typical. Professional success plus icky romance equals progress. Peddi’s dream of ensuring that he and his community will be given identity papers, and that his village will get a railway station, is getting somewhere.
But there’s more, much more, in store. Based on a story by the director and a screenplay by five writers, Peddi uses as a framing device India’s poor showing at the Olympic Games in 2016. A ministry official (Boman Irani) on the prowl for fresh talent turns up in a town in Andhra Pradesh, where he meets a man who tells him about the legend of Peddi.
The man takes the official on an arduous trek to Peddi’s hilltop village. Although fascinated by Peddi’s story, the official frequently stops out of exhaustion – a fate that also awaits viewers of the 189-minute film.
Peddi realises that cricket, which is based on team work and trust, isn’t the answer. His overlords would rather gang up against him than give his village recognition. In a span of what appears to be mere months, Peddi switches from cricket to wrestling and then running in his quest for dignity. The move from the wrestling ring to the track has to be one of the most ludicrous plot developments in recent memory.
Hyperbole is the chief feature of a drama centred on an over-achieving, impossibly gifted hero. When Peddi hits a six, it spans the length of no less than three grounds. He wrestles an entire akhara all by himself to impress the veteran coach Garunaidu (Shiva Rajkumar). Peddi fumbles on the racing track but catches up even though everyone else is many metres ahead of him.
Obstacle after obstacle is placed in Peddi’s way, and scene after scene is designed to showcase his strength and resolve. Numerous sequences go on forever, undercutting their impact. There is a great deal of weeping and speechifying.
Plot strands and characters appear and vanish. Divyenndu, who plays one of Peddi’s opponents, disappears for much of the film. As a politician’s daughter who’s involved in his re-election campaign, Achiyamma might have been able to help Peddi get the villagers enumerated in government records.
But she’s strictly a sex object, there to titillate and then become the victim of a sick act that gives Peddi something more to do. Janhvi Kapoor plays Achiyamma with the kind of heightened coquetry that apparently hasn’t yet gone out of style. We’ve never seen a woman like Achiyamma, a character exults. We shouldn’t.
The massively over-plotted film is reeling out information all the way till the very last credit has rolled. Peddi has important things to say about marginalised Indians who have fallen off the map, who are ignored by governments and ill-treated by just about everybody. This could have been conveyed in a less messy and overwrought manner – or simply by cutting out at least one of the three sports?
The gluttony has moments worth savouring. The sequences revolving around cricket, wrestling and running are handsomely crafted and engaging despite the grandstanding. Peddi’s speeches are rousing and on point.
Ram Charan is especially impressive in the scenes in which Peddi wills his body into performing miracles. Well suited to play a folk hero in a contemporary epic, Ram Charan is committed to Peddi’s most nonsensical moments. Shiva Rajkumar’s Garunaidu features in one of the film’s most focused sub-plots.
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