Peddi Movie Review: Children are asked about their favourite sports stars and one by one they answer the same surprising reply: Peddi. One wishes to be a wrestler like him, another wants to be a cricketer like him and each one another is an icon of athletics. It’s a fascinating detail, and for a brief moment Peddi feels like it is setting up the kind of larger-than-life sports legend that audiences can’t wait to discover. That is the mystery that director Buchi Babu Sana effectively uses to draw the viewers into the narrative and make them expect to get an inspirational story of an underdog which is based on a real-life event. Sadly, that initial tantalizing mystery prevails over the movie that ensues. The concept of a thrilling sports story gradually fades to a collection of diversions, that never allow the narrative to ever really fire on all four cylinders.
At a meeting headed by the Central Sports Minister India’s poor performance in the Olympics is discussed. Urgency to change the sporting environment in the country, need to discover young talent and build a better tomorrow for Indian sport discussed. One of the officials is sent to investigate the matter, and on the way he comes across a sport selection event, which leads to the main conundrum of this movie.
During the event, the children from various sports are invited to discuss their inspirations. One of them proudly states: “I want to be a wrestler like Peddi.” Another responds, “I want to become a great cricketer like Peddi.” A third utters, “I want to be an athlete like Peddi.” When someone is identified with two different sports, it’s obvious that curiosity will arise. The official becomes fascinated and wants to know who this legendary figure is. Then comes a narrator onto the screen who is sure and asserts “I’ll tell you Peddi’s flashback, follow me”.
Unfortunately, this is where I began to lose my enthusiasm. The film plunges the viewer into a long flashback that’s needlessly protracted. The road to a flashback is more arduous and longer than the story that is being told. The storytelling doesn’t build suspense, but rather becomes too wordy. We are told that Peddi is from a village in the middle of nowhere that even has the barest recognition. The villagers do not have any ration cards or identity documents. His struggle for identity with his people becomes one of the pillars of the plotline of the story.
The thing I was most disappointed by was the film’s lack of focus. Instead of fully exploring the emotional and motivational potential of its story, the screenplay keeps shifting to random, and at times irrelevant, episodes, preventing it from developing the depth and impact it could have had.
The narrator who assures the audience he will expose Peddi’s greatness takes quite some time talking about his romantic and intimate moments with Janhvi Kapoor. As with the sports officer who was listening to the story, I waited for the film to get back to its main theme. Rather, it continually returns to these diversions and undermines the flow of the story. Even in extreme situations like when a villager is hit by a train and killed while waving a flag, it doesn’t really have an emotional impact on the audience because the film doesn’t make them feel close to characters in any way.
There are also some questionable creative decisions in the film in terms of the sport element. Initially, Peddi’s dream is to play cricket but he comes to know that there are some physical restrictions that stop him from becoming a great player. Then he moves on to wrestling, where he might have been the starting point for a great change in his life. The execution, however, doesn’t seem to be believable. Shiva Rajkumar is sporting his wrestling trainer persona, although he is a great performer, his casting here seems oddly out of place. Such decisions do not enhance the sport story, rather they detract from it.
The thing that bugs me is that Peddi had all the components to make a great sports drama. If you are looking for a sports film that has an emotional appeal you will find it within a sports film. Even if the stories are created formulaically, they can be entertaining through efforts, challenges, and successes. In this case, the makers were really inspirational with a foundation, but they appeared more to make mass-hero moments than build a story. The script is not particularly exciting, the emotional moments don’t always hit their target and the story is rather underwhelming given the obviously strong material it’s built on.
At the end I thought that Peddi missed a great opportunity. Rather than a tribute to the power to persevere and the power to excel at sport, it turns a potentially promising real-life story into an excessively long, unfocused and surprisingly boring film. The intent is there, and it seems to be a very well-funded production, but it never really lives up to the end. Peddi is to me a reminder that it’s not enough to be a great story. It also calls for discipline, clarity and a good story.
Rating: 2/5
