Quick Rant: Kuberaa

Kuberaa is certainly a step out of Shekhar Kammula's typical genre—the romantic drama that has something to do with NRIs and being abroad for some reason. Instead, Kuberaa is an action crime drama that had the potential to be a game changer in its genre. Instead, the occasional shabby writing (and more) really set the film back.

In this post, I wanna revise the story in a way that I think would've made it genre-redefining. So, my version will address the three deadly sins that haunt this script: The entire exposition of the film, Deepak's character as a whole, and the mix between the editing and the BGM.

Right off the bat, the movie starts with a bit of unnecessary melodrama regarding Deepak's arrest. Deepak is played by none other than Nagarjuna, who really couldn't act to save his life. He's (apparently) wrongly arrested and will be in jail for quite a while. Some sad sentimental moments between him and his wife happen, then they talk about their child, and that's it for the setup of Deepak's character. We're supposed to believe he's the good guy just because they tell us he is. From his actions, all we get is that he has a family that he likes—that's it. Nothing else.

That's a problem because it doesn't set us up to truly believe he has reason to accept the offer that Neeraj Mitra (played by a very convincing Jim Sarbh) puts forth. There is no reason for Deepak to all of a sudden betray his morals and accept the "get out of jail free" card. He was literally arrested for not accepting a bribe/becoming corrupt, so why would he randomly take this deal? He isn't "left with no choice" because his other choice was to stay in jail and push for his case to be taken to higher courts (which is what his wife was gonna do anyways if she didn't choose death). By treating Deepak like main character and giving him such an introduction, the film doesn't set us up properly to believe the moral conflicts he faces later. It feels more like, "Oh he's Nagarjuna, of course a character he plays is gonna do all of this nonsense."

So instead of starting off with Deepak, we should begin with Neeraj Mitra and his need for the skillset that Deepak possesses. As a result, Neeraj threatens Deepak—either Deepak comes and works for him, or his family is killed. Deepak, being the family-oriented man he is, will choose to work for Neeraj. Through his work for Neeraj, his morals slowly get twisted until the ending, where he chooses the good side instead of the bad. In order for the movie to work, Deepak needs to remain as exactly what he is—a side character.

Once Neeraj pulls Deepak into his great evils and the plan to get four beggars as benamis gets rolling, we get introduced to Deva, played by Dhanush. This is our main character. (Kammula certainly did treat him as one, but it could've been more successful.) Deva's introduction is okay. With a shoddy transition into a devotional score, we are handed his character traits on a silver platter. There isn't a single moment where it isn't ridiculously obvious what trait is trying to be explained. With some slight fixing, I would've kept Dhanush's introduction pretty much the same.

So far, the story goes as follows: Neeraj needs some help and threatens Deepak into working for him. We then get introduced to Deva, who is one of the chosen beggars for Deepak's work.

After this, there aren't many problems in the structure of the story itself, but rather, the writing of some scenes needs a little bit of work.

For example, Sameera (played by Rashmika Mandanna) absolutely did not need to have any comedic value in the movie. In fact, the movie didn't need any comedy. Her entire backstory was, in my opinion, a waste of time. A brief explanation of how she ended up here would be fine, but the brief comedy (and the occasional light BGM) that occurs between her and Deva/Deepak feels like such a weird tone shift that shouldn't be happening. It was almost like we were slipping back into a typical Sekhar Kammula romance...

And speaking of BGM, I think that DSP was the wrong choice for such a movie. I would envision Keeravani to be a much better fit for a film like this.

The emerging relationship between Deva and Sameera was something I really liked, as well as the cat-and-mouse chase that ensued between them and Deepak. In fact, the rest of the movie was pretty decent.... except when Deepak revealed himself to be Obulesu or whatever his name was. The few brief moments of that subplot were ridiculous and massively unnecessary. Deepak should've acted out of the good morals he used to have, retreating to a version he used to be, rather than acting out of some past history he had with Deva.

And yeah, I get it, "Deva always hangs around those who helped him, which is probably why he hung around Deepak so much, almost like an older brother." OK fine, but that entire idea could've been cut and still Deva could've seen Deepak as a brother because of how he's 'helping' him in the present. It's these small, unnecessary things that could've been cut and rearranged to make the movie great (and shorter, although I didn't feel the runtime was a problem). Kammula had all the puzzle pieces and some extra for his story, but by choosing to leave in the extra, he let go of how beautiful the film could've otherwise been.

So yeah, please hire me to write your movies—thanks!

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