In the early 1900s, a young man named Shankar forgoes a steady financial future to seek his fortune in Africa in this adaptation of the popular 1937 Bengali novel “Chander Pahar.” Shooting in South Africa and Botswana, director Kamaleshwar Mukherjee never lacks for atmosphere, but his film is painfully awkward in execution, from the stiff dialogue to the time-padding slo-mo sequences and glaring CGI (the big villain, a mythical beast called a Bunyip, looks like something out of the ’70s Krofft show “Land of the Lost”).
As Shankar, Tollywood (Indian cinema based in Hyderabad) star Dev Adhikari cuts a handsome figure in various period garb, first as stationmaster at a remote Ugandan train stop, and then as he’s tramping through the veldt with diamond-hunter Diego Alvarez (Gerard Rudolf) in search of the titular mountain. But the episodic script, which sees Shankar repeatedly fleeing wild animals and tumbling down into caves and crevasses, feels awfully sluggish, especially at a 2 ½-hour running time. Mukherjee’s epic ambition is palpable here, but “Lawrence of Arabia” it ain’t.