India, Sept. 24 -- There are many who have a grouse with Srikanth Odela's debut film, Dasara (2023), with Nani. I am not one of them. While that film also felt awfully familiar, thanks to his guru, Sukumar's Rangasthalam (2018), there was honesty in the way the tale was told. The same cannot be said for their second outing, The Paradise. It is not just bogged down with a sense of deja vu, but is shoddily made, making no attempt to stand apart from similar films that have been hitting screens lately. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Shikanja Malik (Mohan Babu) rules over the fictional Paradise by exploiting the Savaari tribe. He has been looking down on them for years, but an incident changes the course of his rule. It has been 40 years s...