Needing the money to further his children's education, rural laborer Narasimha (Sunil Shetty), takes a risky job as a cook for a faction of Naxal. Within moments of his first day he is caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between the rebels and goverment authorities. Stunned and scolded into submission, Narasimha soon becomes more than just a cook.
Raiding rural police precincts, marking local officials for assassination, kidnapping international corporate executives who are preparing to reap the region's resources, the Naxal see themselves as something of a "Robin Hood" type force, claiming to steal from the rich and give to the poor. They are educated men and women, trained and vigilant soldiers, camping out in the jungles of Andhra, preparing for their next strike.
Narasimha fails to impress the faction's leader, Velu, who becomes something of the villain of the film, yet as a whole neither the rebels or the government are shown in simple black and white logic. The world these people traverse is complex, there is no right or wrong. Both sides have ideals and valid points of interest. Both excel the bloodshed of innocents to no end. While Velu is portrayed as a hardened, uncompromising soldier, his comrade Ana is shown as a stoic, learned man, a believer in the power of words over weapons, and a teacher to the illiterate Narasimha. The women are proud fighters, equal to the men. On the opposite side, the House Minister is shown as something of a sympathetic man if only because of his indecisions and flip-flopping in all this mess. If there is one agenda Mahadevan supports unabashedly as a filmmaker it is peace. But on what moral ground?
Where the film falters is establishing an emotional core to our everyman. His fight for his family and the rights of the innocent come up feeling a bit trite. Through sappy flashbacks over seemingly inappropriate pop ballads, Narasimha weeps for his family. Shetty, who looks like an action star, seems miscast, and doesn't help these moments as he pretty much stays on one, somewhat wooden wavelength the whole movie. These tactics are the easy way out, although I can also see how this may be a way to find the sympathies of a general audience in India, ensnaring them in the tale of family man, while informing them of a civil war that has been raging far too long.
As a thriller it doesn't rate too highly either, fielding the usual double crosses and twists and turns without creating any real underlying sense of tension. Though it comes with a loaded final twist, that too fails to make much of an impact due to the way it's presented through expository flashbacks, which make it feel a bit silly.
Where the film does succeed fairly well is with its competently shot small-scale steady cam action through bloody jungle floors and rural compounds. It also boasts an able supporting cast, including Sameera Reddy as Lakshmi, a victimized woman who finds personal strength in joining the Naxal - a far more interesting sub plot than Narasimha's everyman.
While admirable in its efforts to inform of this tragic tide of violence, Red Alert falls short of telling a compelling story.