'Game Changer' Movie Review: Ram Charan, S. J. Suryah Herald An Almost-Return To Form For Shankar

Director: S. Shankar
Writers: Karthik Subbaraj, Vivek Velmurugan, Sai Madhav Burra
Cast: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, Samuthirakani, S. J. Suryah, Srikanth
Language: Telugu

When we talk about the best Shankar films—Mudhalvan, Anniyan, Indian—we’re talking about masala films that have emotional sweep, an uncanny ability to switch tones from the absurd (think of the mud fight in Mudhalvan) to the heartbreaking (think, again, of the bomb sequence from the same film), some broad-strokes comedy, a visual imagination on overdrive, and vigilante heroes whose political violence is cathartic (if discomfiting).

Game Changer, Shankar’s latest, is an attempt at a return to form. At times, it feels like an aging band playing their greatest hits. At others, it feels like covers by a tribute act—there’s warmth in the familiar melodic turns and an ability to surprise yet. But it’s all a bit creaky, and everything’s slightly off.

Read More | From 'Gentleman' To 'Game Changer': How Director Shankar Uses Songs In His Films

The plot concerns upstanding IAS officer Ram Nandan (Ram Charan) taking on political corruption and the Machiavellian maneuvers of Bobbili Mopidevi (SJ Suryah, in crackling form), the apparent heir to the Andhra Pradesh CM’s chair. What this premise does, and why Game Changer has something more to offer than a lot of the bog-standard star-vehicle, is that the “whistle” moments mostly come from mind-games and political maneuvers, not from endless slow-motion fight sequences (although when the film does decide to do them, it does them quite badly).

Shankar’s films draw their appeal from the fact that they are essentially revenge fantasies for Indians frustrated with their experiences with failing and unreliable infrastructure. We’ve all had experiences with falling sick eating food at public establishments—In Anniyan, Shankar staged the killing of the railways official responsible for it by having him be boiled alive by the (anti?) hero as mass spectacle. There is a primal desire for catharsis via violence in all of us that he’s traditionally tapped into, by constructing a black-and-white world in which the righteous middle-class hero takes on the corruption of the political, bureaucratic, and oftentimes, the working class. In Game Changer, like in Indian 2, there seems to be a reckoning of sorts: an acknowledgement of the fact that corruption is more nuanced and its creeping in a lot more insidious; it can’t be solved by violently eliminating a few people.

Midway through the movie, we get the Shankar-patented flashback: the stretch which lays the emotional roots of the story, and here we get two excellent performances—from Ram Charan, as well as from Anjali. One can’t help but speculate how much of this part of the story came from Karthik Subbaraj, with its vague echoes of Jigarthanda Double X. The tale of betrayal here is where the writing is the strongest (and so is its political texture), even if it isn’t quite as moving as its counterparts in Indian and Anniyan.

Read More | ‘Fateh’ Movie Review: Sonu Sood Directs And Stars In A Not-So-Bad Actioner

The Not-Quite-There quality, though, pervades the film. The songs for instance, are unmistakably Shankar (who else would come up with the fascinating bowl-shaped town in which 'Jaragandi' is set?), but the filmmaking is weirdly flat. The celebratory Raa Macha Macha has a neat hookstep and Thaman’s music has that earworm quality, but the sequence lacks fluidity—it’s as if we’re being served an effort that has not yet been transmuted by the craft of filmmaking into art.

And yet, for all these caveats, Game Changer is mostly a fun time; SJ Suryah’s performance as Bobbili, a villain that’s funniest when he’s at his most evil, is alone worth the price of admission. You will cringe at some of the attempts at humour, and the attempts at a love story are shallow, but the film moves briskly enough so that you forget, and throws enough surprises at you to keep you engaged. Ram Charan too, is in good form, and fits this type of enigmatic lead character quite ably. Game Changer is an attempt at approximating Shankar’s best — which doesn’t all come off — but it’s nowhere close to his worst.