Chiranjeevi is stellar in Waltair Veerayya. At the peak of his stardom in the nineties, Chiranjeevi spoke to the experiences and represented the aesthetics of the non-bourgeois like no other save for Rajnikanth, and it is precisely because this film leans into this persona of Chiranjeevi, that this is a long-awaited return to form. To understand Chiranjeevi, watch the scene in which he arrives at an airport, after an extended machismo build-up, only to start shivering because he’s scared of air-travel. There is mass hypermasculinity in the film, but it is often immediately undercut by a vulnerability, expertly rendered relatable by its lead actor.
The aesthetics also reveal how mass-ness, especially in the South (The Hindi Industry’s remakes of South films don’t quite understand this) often includes and expresses the culture and emotive grammar of areas that lie beyond the metropolitan city. In the song ‘Boss Party’, the lyrics are a debate on what the best place to have a party would be, with arguments put forth on how a beach party wouldn’t have great “reach”, and a cruise party would not allow the “mass” to bloom. So, the song concludes, the best place to have a party is on Veerayya’s fishing boat, with the music on full blast: the message is clear: they, the elite, don’t really know how to have fun, but we do.