Liger Review: Vijay Deverakonda’s One Man Show

Director: Puri Jagannadh

Liger (2022) Cast:

Vijay Deverakonda, Ananya Panday, Ramya Krishnan, Ronit Roy, Mike Tyson, Vishu Reddy, Ali, Makarand Deshpande, Chunky Panday, Getup Srinu

Release Date:

The movie was released in theatres on 26th August 2022 and it has a Box Office collection of Rs 33.12 crore worldwide on its first day.

Liger (2022) Review: Story, Performances & Analysis:

This is the story of Liger (Vijay), a kickboxer with a severe stammer and full of passion as well as dedication who wants to be the Mixed Martial Arts champion. His widowed mother Balamani (Ramya Krishnan) has a dream of seeing his son as the MMA champion. His father Lion Balram died in the knockout after reaching the final of the National MMA championship in 2004. Balram defeated Christopher Master (Ronit Roy) in the semi-final.

Balamani along with her son went to Christopher Master to request him for training his son so that he can win the National MMA championship. As they had no money to offer him, Christopher Master rejected the offer initially but later agreed, and in exchange, his son has to work for him.

His mother always alerts him to stay away from girls to enjoy life fully and stay away from problems. A rich kid named Tanya (Ananya Panday) falls in love with him. Her fighter brother Sanju (Vishu Reddy) was not happy after coming to know about their relationship.

Tanya left Liger giving the reason for his severe stammer. He was broken but became tougher from the inside and more focused on his goal. He won the National MMA championship trophy defeating Sanju but faces trouble for competing at the International level as the board authority denied the support.

Can Liger play and win at the International level? Will Tanya come back to his life? We get these answers in the second half of the movie.

Liger is Vijay Deverakonda’s one-man show that assures entertaining you through the action sequences only. Vijay Deverakonda deserves appreciation for the hard work he did for this physique and he should try action films only if the story is unique. I like watching him in movies like Arjun Reddy, Mahanati, Geetha Govindam, Dear Comrade, etc.

At times his stammering reminded me of Suniel Shetty and you may wonder why he has been given such a character. One reason can be his slow dialogue delivery in Hindi like Prabhas.

Nearly 2 months back the same thing happened with Aditya Roy Kapur who first time tried an action film with Rashtra Kavach Om but due to the weak script, the movie became a disaster at the Box Office. Here I can relate the same with Vijay Deverakonda as Liger is his first action film as well as his first Pan India release and the story adds nothing new to it.

We have watched many such movies with the same script earlier too. The story here had neither any twist nor it was able to create any excitement to keep you hooked to your seats.

Puri Jagannadh’s story, screenplay, and direction were not up to the mark. Liger is completely unexpected from a director who has directed blockbuster movies like Pokiri, Businessman, Temper, etc. I hope he comes up with a better story for his upcoming movie Jana Gana Mana starring Vijay Deverakonda and Pooja Hegde.

Ramya Krishnan and Ronit Roy provided decent performances with their respective characters. Chunky Panday and Mike Tyson had nothing much to do with the characters they were given. Ananya Panday delivered an almost forgetful performance as Tanya.