“Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire,” a Tollywood action drama with a duology structure, has a winding, often confusing plot designed to build up a sequel. However, its maximalist action tableaus always pay off. Prashanth Neel uses the talents of ultra-charismatic superstar Prabhas (the star of S.S.) after his previous two-parter “K.G.F.” broke Indian box office records for Kannada-language films. In a gritty guns-and-gangsters melodrama, Rajamouli portrays the silent, stewing protagonist Deva in the “Baahubali” series. The narrative begins by keeping its cards close to its chest before abruptly and wildly evolving into a mythological epic about ancient blood feuds and secret societies. At 174 minutes long, with nested flashbacks overflowing with exposition, the movie has lengthy stretches that can feel like a chore.  However, the culmination of each extraneous section results in some of the most thrilling and empathetic on-screen violence that Indian cinema has to offer. Opening with a series of flashbacks, “Salaar: Part 1” swiftly establishes a teenage Deva as both loyal and fearsome.  He defeats an adult wrestler in a novel but self-destructive manner, leaving him with a distinctive scar up his arm and neck, protecting his best friend Vardha’s honor. Vardha is the son of the powerful Mannar family, but it is unclear who they are at first. Before long, Vardha returns the favor by helping Deva and his mother (Easwari Rao) escape a threat left similarly nonspecific, and as they enter self-imposed exile, Vardha brands Deva his “salaar”: a one-man army called upon in a time of need — a position he claims dates back to Persian kings.

In a contemporary, mile-a-minute tale of vengeance and surveillance, this prologue gives way to new characters faster than the mind can comprehend. Various armed factions are on the hunt for a young woman, Aadhya (Shruti Haasan), the daughter of a prominent industrialist who has in some way wronged a powerful Indian politician and her catatonic sister.  The only people capable of protecting Shruti from a nationwide manhunt are a now-adult Deva and his mother, who are hiding out as a day laborer and a school teacher in the eastern state of Assam.

Neel builds tremendous anticipation for the action to come by presenting fragments of memories in which the brutality of Deva is impressionistically implied. The screen jitters each time righteous bloodshed crosses Deva’s mind.  Slo-mo shots pay tribute to Prabhas’ stature, build, and poise as well as his reluctance to engage in the ritual of cinematic violence when the first major action scene finally arrives. On their desaturated images, Neel and DP Bhuvan Gowda turn the contrast up, making dust, rain, and even blood drops even more apparent. As a result, limbs and blood fly everywhere. More fights and chases ensue, building to an armed collision that brings a whole new meaning to “automatic weaponry.”  No character’s motivation is ever quite clear except Deva’s (the righteous, godlike protection of innocents), but the action is so absorbing and overwhelming that making sense of the story becomes a secondary concern.  Even though the answers are completely unexpected, this strange narrative withholding begins to make sense once the pieces finally fit together. Most Indian blockbusters are structured around an intermission, but “Salaar: Part 1” feels best divided by a turn a little over hour in, when it ceases to be a straightforward story about a man on a righteous mission and becomes instead an entire season of “Game of Thrones.”  The rest of the story is told entirely in flashback by a character in the present, who finally reveals the reasons for the strange secrecy surrounding the plot after the first act’s denouement. Not only does it involve a hidden society resembling Wakanda on the border of India and Pakistan, but it also involves centuries-old tribal rivalries. Eventually, Deva’s childhood best friend Vardha (Prithviraj Sukumaran) enters the fray, revealing that he had called upon Deva for his help, several years ago.  What was initially presented as the movie’s plot is consumed by that call and its consequences during a political power grab that spans multiple continents, and for good reason. Even if it means sacrificing dramatic coherence for long stretches, screenwriter Neel is determined to create a sprawling cinematic lore comparable to “The Lord of the Rings” or Hindu epics like “Mahabharat.” Despite these dumbfounding complications, he continues to build Deva’s violent outbursts as reluctant rituals of violence, instilling in the audience a rabid desire to see Prabhas let loose on villainous goons.  He even turns a recurring shot of Deva’s shadow, arms crossed in inaction, into a thrilling motif, as though the mere act of uncrossing his arms were the beginning of a steady demolition, en route to poses associated with demonic figures of Hindu scripture.

On the one hand, the bizarre inside-out structure makes the first act of the movie merely a set-up for the upcoming sequel (Salaar: Part 2 – Shouryaanga Parvam). In contrast, Neel ensures that each action scene in “Part 1” builds on the one before it, regardless of the order in which they occur. The film’s climax may unfold five years before the kidnapping saga in its present, but it makes for a fiery, cathartic crescendo rife with visual escalation and dramatic possibility.  For a film that runs nearly 3 hours, its action scenes may feel few and far between, but each and every one of them is worth the wait.