RUN-of-the-mill

The final scene in the film with the horse ride, I guess, sums up the attitude of Sreenu Vaitla who holds back no punch and clearly declares that the audience has been taken for a ride.

Over 150 minutes of high voltage destruction at the hands of a single person is the distance the filmmaker is willing to or is designed to walk and project the scion of the family. Stars hardly make films.

They perpetuate images; they build space for their opulence and call it creativity or entertainment. Add nepotism to the scheme and the picture is complete. It is easy to play hero when life is so perfectly scripted.

Young siblings have varying sensitivity quotients. Dad Ramchander (Rao Ramesh) can only afford one child at Delhi Public School and so prefers his son. The lad, however, feigns failure to ensure he translates the dreams in the eyes of sister.

Bro Karthik a la Bruce Lee (Ram Charan) thus sacrifices his future to nurse Kavya’s (Kriti Kharbanda) ambitions of becoming a district collector. Bruce Lee joins the film industry as a stuntman. He falls in love with Ria (Rakul Preet Singh).

Ramchander is busy with his middle-class life, always spiting son for his failures and singing praises for his daughter who is an IAS officer in the making. His elder brother (Tanikella Bharani), however, has smelt the rat and called the bluff, but in private.

Ramchander works for Vasundhara Pharmacy which is owned by Jairaj (Sampath Raj) and his wife (Nadiya). Their son Rahul (Amitash Pradhan) is engaged to marry Kavya. Wait the story is not all that simple.

We have the purpose less bad guy Deepak Raj (Arun Vijay) who tries hard to stay away from bullet-filled guns and imitating Hrithik Roshan. Bad crosses path with good. The likes of Mukesh Rishi, Sayaji Shinde and Posani Krishna Murali walk in as characters as real as cardboard.

The good Vs bad story stretches for over two and half hours in the midst of romantic interludes with the heroine in drapes and lingerie mode. She even wears noodles stripes for a dress and is extremely dumb witted to not realise that her lover boy is not a cop as she imagines him to be.

So we have a dad who does not know about his son, a lady who does not know her fiancée, a wife who is clueless about her plotting hubby, a police officer who does not know his colleagues or his superiors, and another police officer who does not know his duties.

Then we have twins who we think are one and, a single guy, who some think are twins! As you labour to put these loose ends together rather than just give up, the film draws you to a climax which is actually contrived to a fault and is a damp squib.

I suspect the audience is waiting for most of the time in the hope of seeing the mega star on the silver screen after the long hiatus. Sampath Raj, Tanikella Bharani and Rao Ramesh are sincere in etching some life into their characters.

Ram Charan tries hard but simply does not have the screen presence to take the film on his shoulder. The script is too full of predictable holes for him to survive. The heroine is so bush getting into her lingerie and dancing to tunes that the film makes no difference to her. As the sister we have Kriti Kharbanda hopeless miscast.

Arun Vijay too is far from convincing. For comedy we have Brahmanandam, Ali and Vennela Kishore – none making any impact. On the other hand it is only Saptagiri who gives the script some light moments. Speaking for myself the song “Run run” has some hidden message – if only you are willing to take it.

Film Name : Bruce Lee The Fighter

Cast : Ram Charan, Rakul Preet Singh, Kriti Karbhanda and Sampath

Direction : Sreenu Vaitla

Genre : Action- drama

Likes : Some twists and the lighter moments

Dislikes : Too long and predictable

Rating : **

By L Ravichander