‘Pushpa 2: The Rule’ Movie Review: Come for Allu Arjun, Stay for Allu Arjun

Director: Sukumar
Writer: Sukumar, Srikanth Vissa
Cast: Allu Arjun, Fahadh Faasil, Rashmika Mandanna, Ajay, Jagadeesh Prathap Bandari, Sunil
Language: Hindi (dubbed)

Pushpa 2: The Rule is not one 200-minute movie. It’s a loop of 50 four-minute trailers. In most of them, crime king Pushpa Raj has an entry shot, a slow-mo raised-shoulder walking shot, his trademark beard-caressing shot, a one-liner, a two-liner, and a scene in which he either humiliates another man or defends a woman’s honour. If we’re lucky, he dances. If we’re luckier, he cries (this Pushpa doesn’t hate tears). If we’re luckiest, he kills. Director Sukumar makes some sort of world record for achieving almost no narrative motion in the time it takes to start and end wars. A wounded male ego remains the biggest superstar of mainstream Telugu cinema. A gangster is still driven by the trauma of a fatherless childhood; he still craves for the acceptance of his rude upper-caste half-brother; he still enjoys belittling and toying with an upper-class ‘outsider’ cop. Pushpa rose, now Pushpa is ruling. Pushpa bought a car, now he buys a helicopter. It’s all vibes. One trailer ends, the next begins. Forget Amar Chitra Katha, this is Pushpa Chitra Katha.

It’s hard not to be entertained by Pushpa 2. The endless setup is over, now it’s just one swaggy set piece after another. The long commute to the bar is over; this is the wild(fire) drinking session. There’s something very satisfying about watching Allu Arjun turn his body and mannerisms into one big punchline; it taps into the ambient addiction of watching viral dance reels of global hits (the latest being the K-pop earworm ‘APT’). Arjun’s Pushpa is just a catchy character — a primal symphony of put-on aura and rustic rage. Every gesture looks like a toned-down dance move. Every expression is a ‘thumka’ for the audience. A moment without him feeds the anticipation of when he’ll appear next. In other words, he embodies the true essence of a star; the film around him can afford to be a formality. 200 minutes can become 400, but Allu Arjun remains the cheat code. Usually, only villains are so much fun; they’re guilty pleasures parading as people. This brings me to the core reason Pushpa 2 — whether 50 trailers, 4 features, 2 TV shows or 100 teasers — is so bingeable. It’s a mad-scientist concoction of both worlds: the physicality of a villain and the morality of a hero. In the context of Indian storytelling, it’s a little more complicated than baddie-attitude-meets-goodie-intent.

In many ways, Pushpa 2: The Rule is the expensive and expansive answer to the question: what if Animal (2023) didn’t hate women? While Pushpa: The Rise (2021) did have its little knuckle-raps on the male gaze, The Rule has a reference point — and a formula to revise. As per his name (Pushpa means “flower”), the franchise now riffs on a specific ‘brand’ of masculinity. He is a man’s man of course: daddy issues, drinking, smoking, mutton, bloodlust, revenge, it’s all there. But he’s driven by the women in his life. He’s a deformed beast with a conscience. Pushpa’s hunger for power — political, financial, social — is still tied to the stigma of his mother’s past. In the first film, he submits to SP Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat (Fahadh Faasil) and lays off him until his wedding day because mom wanted him to stay safe. In this one, his lust to rule is unlocked the second an arrogant Chief Minister denies his wife Srivalli’s photo-op request. Lest we don’t get it, CM sir adds: “Those who listen to their women never succeed”.

There’s an entire ‘comic’ subplot, or trailer, about Pushpa being urged to apologise to Shekhawat. But it’s a bunch of older men urging him, so he can’t quite do it. And when he drunkenly fails, he makes sure to tell the women at the event to leave because he can’t trust his foul mouth. This is moments after he urinates in a pool, but hey, I’ll take it. The running joke is that Pushpa is a pussycat around his wife; he hesitates to criticise her cooking skills, and routinely submits to her come-hither “feelings”. The Sreeleela-starring dance number ‘Kissik’ isn’t half as effective as Samantha’s ‘Oo Antava,’ but it’s designed around a ‘thappad marungi (I’ll slap you)’ hookstep. At one point, a rousing monologue goes along the lines of, “I’ll show you what happens when a man obeys his wife”.

Naturally, the film overplays Pushpa’s devotion to the feminine. A strikingly-staged Gangamma Thalli Jathara sequence features Pushpa dressed and dancing as the Goddess. It’s a powerful-enough image, but there’s the extra righteous layer of him wanting a daughter and not a son so that she can at least gain a surname after marrying. Then there’s the track of Pushpa’s cousin sister being abducted by the most random predators so that a crazed and sari-clad Pushpa can destroy them for treating women poorly. The Rashmika Mandanna in Pushpa 2 is not all that different from the Rashmika in Animal. Srivalli cooks, cleans, serves her husband his alcohol and snacks, beds him, shadows him, prays for him, but at least gets a monologue about how noble he is. Also, he doesn’t cheat on her. And he’s religious. Even his corruption is Ramayana-coded; an entire action scene revolves around smuggling his priceless red sandalwood cargo from Rameswaram to Sri Lanka. So hey, she’ll take it. Respect for women is the only parameter used to separate toxic masculinity from murderous masculinity. The wokeness comes with an asterisk. It can go only so far.

At best, Pushpa Raj’s father was a Sandeep Reddy Vanga hero: Pushpa is the anarchy sans the patriarchy. SP Shekhawat, who Faasil plays with a feral Gollum-like spirit, might be on the right side of the law but he’s seen sleeping with a sex worker, so it’s implied that he’s a psychopath in uniform. There’s a sweet bromance hidden in there, what with Shekhawat’s I-want-to-be-your-best-friend eyes and his desperately tragic quest for validation. The law is just an excuse. In a parallel universe, he’s the Louis Litt (from Suits) to Pushpa’s Harvey Spector — forever needy, always thwarted, secretly stanning, and strangely loyal to their rivalry. I wish there was more of their dick measuring contest, but there’s something amusing about seeing the film mirror Pushpa’s main-character energy and shamelessly deny Shekhawat (and by extension, Faasil) the continuity he deserves. It’s like he’s battling for attention, getting weirder and weirder so that the camera stays on him. Every time the story forgets him, the writing is on the paan-stained wall: this is Allu Arjun’s world and you’re just breathing in it.

For me, Pushpa 2: The Rule reframes the meaning of the term “mass entertainer”. It turns this derogatory adjective into more of a cultural aesthetic. Catering to the ‘masses’ is one definition. But the rhythm of Pushpa 2 suggests that the real definition alludes to the physical mass — the narrative flab, the airy detours, the vanity, the performances, the songs and grandstanding — and not the skeleton of such movies. Perhaps the distraction is the film, and the actual story (or the semblance of one) is the dressing. Maybe the weight is the film and the muscle is embellishment. Maybe the iceberg is the film and the ship is…I’ll stop now. But the point stands. When liberated from the rules of flowing forward or making sense, all that’s left is one man and his style. And if there’s one thing that can sway the India of today, it’s a man and his style. He can go on rising, ruling and rampaging for another four years — as long as his fire remains his smokescreen.