Review: Eega (2012)

Eega (The Fly) (2012)

Rated UA by the Central Board of Film Certification (rough MPAA equivalent: PG-13)

Score: 4 out of 5

This past Friday, Popcorn Frights gave me my introduction to Tollywood cinema (no, not Bollywood -- same country, different language) in the form of Eega, one of the films that S. S. Rajamouli wrote and directed before RRR made people outside India start taking notice of him. An effects-driven fantasy action-comedy about a man who gets murdered, gets reincarnated as a fly, and sets out to take revenge on the man who killed him, its plot and tone felt reminiscent of the old '90s family comedy Mouse Hunt, only jacked up to a downright insane level courtesy of both some genuine edge to its plot and a truly great villain performance by Sudeepa that managed to cross language barriers. This was a wild movie, and while the first act was pretty weird in how it framed the romance that ultimately becomes a key driving force in the story, once the part with the fly got going I was too busy laughing my socks off and being impressed by some of the visuals that they managed to cook up on a fairly small budget (roughly $6-7 million US). It's on Netflix, so if you wanna see something absolutely wacky that's nonetheless an actual good movie as well, check this one out.

Our protagonist Nani is an ordinary man who's madly in love with his next-door neighbor Bindu, a miniatures artist whose day job is running an NGO that assists local schools, a feeling that she's finally starting to notice and reciprocate. Seeking to raise money for her organization, Bindu reaches out to Sudeep, a sleazy, womanizing local land developer who uses the promise of funding in an attempt to make Bindu his new wife -- and when he notices that Bindu also has eyes for Nani, Sudeep decides to kill the lowly worker in order to get him out of the way. Unfortunately for Sudeep, even death can't stop Nani's love, as he's reincarnated as a fly who fully remembers his past life and sets out to make Sudeep's life a living hell, slowly driving him mad as he starts to believe in the "crazy" idea that a fly has developed a grudge against him.

The first half-hour or so was a mixed bag, less due to the film's technical qualities (it could actually be quite charming, especially with the obligatory musical number) and more due to how it presented Nani's unreciprocated love for Bindu. To put it as nicely as possible, he's depicted as something close to a stalker in his constant attempts to get her attention, to the point that even his roommate calls him out for it, and yet it's presented as just a goofy character quirk even though, in real life, there's a reason why women get uneasy about that sort of behavior. Yes, this movie comes from a different time (2012 was just coming out of a golden age for pickup artistry) and a different country, and the film is self-aware about it and makes Nani the butt of the joke as much as anyone, but it's still kind of off-putting, especially given that it's implied that Bindu really was just playing hard to get and does eventually fall for him by the end of the first act. If I'd written their dynamic, I would've focused more on Bindu being an upwardly-mobile middle-class artist and professional and Nani being a working-class laborer, making it a situation where Bindu clearly has affection for Nani but is afraid of being judged for dating below her status, a dynamic that would've played nicely into Bindu's interactions with the wealthy villain Sudeep who wants to claim her as his trophy wife. Instead, the way it came across felt like an obsessive romantic successfully wearing down the object of his affection because she's decided that the alternative is worse, even if the film did at least have some self-awareness about how Nani was acting.

That said, once Nani dies and comes back, a lot of that fades into the background in favor of a nonstop mix of hilarious comic set pieces and genuinely entertaining action scenes. Rajamouli gives this movie a style and flair you don't normally see in fantasy comedies coming out of Hollywood, with the numerous effects shots especially making up for their low budget with a measure of cartoony stylization that goes well with what's (mostly) a very family-friendly film. Nani has as much lovable character as a fly as he did as a human, arguably moreso given that we're no longer shown his stalker-ish tendencies, while Samantha Ruth Prabhu as Bindu carries the entirety of their relationship as she has to spend most of the movie pretending that the love of her life is now inhabiting the body of a fly, complete with outfitting him with protective goggles to resist bug spray and tiny metal claws to let him scratch at things. Some moments in this movie get wild, from our introduction to Fly!Nani first learning how to be a fly by traveling through a park to him harassing a traffic cop to cause gridlock in an intersection to the bit where Sudeep hires a witch doctor named Tantra to possess two birds to send after the fly. This movie's mix of action and slapstick comedy is bursting with creativity, constantly coming up with new ways to make me laugh myself silly.

While the fly may be the main character, this movie would not have worked nearly as well as it did without the mononymous actor Sudeepa playing the film's main villain, the very similarly named Sudeep (without the "a"). Sudeep is a caricature of a yuppie scumbag, a guy who we're introduced to skeet shooting while hitting on a woman who's later revealed to be another man's wife, such that he makes Nani look like a downright catch in comparison. The torment he receives from the fly over the course of the film may be over-the-top, but he makes it clear throughout that he deserves every bit of it, seeing other people as props and NPCs in his own story and not caring who he hurts. What's more, Sudeepa clearly had a lot of fun playing this guy who's slowly losing his mind as a little fly refuses to leave him be. He felt like a rich douchebag out of an '80s Hollywood comedy who, whether he's the hero or the villain, is above all else the butt of every joke as the movie finds new ways to creatively torture him both physically and mentally, and his ultimate comeuppance at the end was very well-deserved.

(Also, if American blockbusters insist on getting longer and longer, maybe they should imitate the Indian moviegoing tradition of having an intermission. Popcorn Frights didn't actually do the intermission for this and jumped straight into the second half, and frankly, at 2 hours and 14 minutes this one wasn't too long, but still.)

The Bottom Line

Eega was an extremely charming and hilarious movie that had some rough edges early on, but otherwise made a great introduction for yours truly to both S. S. Rajamouli and Indian cinema in general, and earns my recommendation.