Tevar

There isn’t much to take home from this film’s cut-and-dried plot except one man’s performance

Mathura is only about an hour’s drive from Agra, and so Pintoo, a kabbadi player, goes there often to practise. Early one winter morning, he spots a girl being dragged into a car by a man, and rescues her. The man turns out to be the biggest thug of Mathura, and the girl, who is desperately trying to get to Delhi to take a flight to the US and flee his clutches, is a college student who has had the misfortune of triggering the amorous side of this hoodlum’s persona.

Gajender Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), his honour insulted by the nerve of this Agra boy stealing his girl from right under his nose, lets loose all the goons of Mathura to get his beloved Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha) back, but can’t prevent Pintoo (Arjun Kapoor) from sneaking her out of town.

There is not much to savour in the formulaic plot of Tevar, save for a man who has his pants taken down. At one point, while in an advantageous position in a confrontation rippling with tension, Pintoo has Gajender take his trousers off. For the next hour in the movie, this monstrous villain walks around in his boxer shorts, having vowed not to wear pants till he gets his girl back.

The sheer élan with which Gajender saunters around in his underwear is hugely entertaining. Since his brother (Rajesh Sharma) is the Home Minister, he even attends a high-level police meeting without the pantaloons. As it happens, it is his aggrieved brother who makes the most sardonic remark on Gajender’s want of sartorial elegance, saying that most men take their pants down when they get the girl, not when they lose her.

Finally, we get to the long winded climax quite exhausted after 160 minutes of mayhem.

Actor Bajpayee has long since stolen the picture from Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha, so we simply go through the motions of watching this ill matched couple fall in love.

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Ajit Duara