Gripping tale of one-upmanship

Associating intelligence with Telugu commercial cinema can be dicey. Masala movie specialists have been content in dishing out tailor-made, formula films for decades now, and they have been lapped up too by and large, mostly for want of choice.

Into this scenario, comes in this week’s release ‘Dhruva’ which is the Konidela family’s first remake release of the season, with two more to follow with other heroes of the family over the months ahead. ‘Thani Orvuvan’, the original Tamil film was feted for its attention-grabbing narrative and the tense interplay between the hero and the villain.

In the Telugu version, working on his body and character, Ram Charan lets himself effortlessly into the role of an IPS officer, who has a gang of batch mates out to stop evil wherever it occurs.

Investing a quick -witted tone to his personality, director Surender Reddy builds up the film well, despite a slow rollout in the first half-an-hour. Taking up a medical mafia case as the main component of his plotline, he interweaves crime and political wheeling-dealing into it, promising a watchable fare.

The pace hits a fast track once the bad man Aravind Swamy is introduced and straightaway, he takes over the flow and dominates the scenario. Lovingly crafted by the director, he is surely a new kind of evil, depicting a cool, ruthless kind of an attitude as he goes about his diabolic planning.

That he has a neck-to-neck race with the hero right till the final frames is a rare kind of a privilege which he is accorded, a trend generally unseen in many flicks, where the rise of the protagonist is directly proportional to the sliding of the antagonist ending in his tame defeat at the end.

Rakul Preet Singh enjoys a marginally better grade from the usual leading lady types, as she is shown as a fellow cop along with the hero, even though she is in a supportive slot for the most part. The chemistry between the lead pair is adequate but does not crackle, as it should have, which would have contrasted it with the heavy action that is the mainstay of the film.

However, Ram Charan looks assured throughout even as Aravind Swamy is in hot pursuit. This seems to have made the director’s job easy, desisting from ‘localising’ the film to suit the nativity factor, which could have diluted the sizzling flow. In all, a good year-end film for the fans!

Film Name : Dhruva

Cast : Ram Charan, Arvind Swamy and Rakul Preet Singh
Direction : Surender Reddy
Genre : Thriller
Likes : Faithful adherence to the original
Dislikes : Slow start