Movie Review - Power (Telugu) - ‘Power’less string of scrapes!!

There is a clear distinction set for commercial-style cop stories. They have to be loud and darn loud – both in terms of the background score that tries to elevate the scenes and also the uncanny sounds that only find a place in such films. Of course, you can’t imagine listening to thuds and dishums in real life scenarios. Power wanders around this ambit and climbs many notches in rinsing and repeating the formulaic template of a masala entertainer. There’s no harm in dishing out masala, but to what extent is it palatable and how to run a quality check of the ingredients used would be a matter of concern.

Power stays on the fulcrum with Balupu and Vikramarkudu on its extreme ends. In between, there’s a Don Seenu, Julayi, Gentleman, Daruvu, Lakshmi Narasimha et al trying to cling on it to get a perfect balancing act. The film explodes in Kolkata with a high on adrenaline chase sequence chewing loads of aerial footage. Here, Ravi Teja is Baladev Sahay – gutsy yet corrupt police officer. Then the smoke trail leads to another place where a different Ravi Teja flashes in a mass avatar in the form of Tirupathi. Here, he is a wannabe cop and runs from pillar to post to get his dream job. The film shifts between these two characters with interspersing episodes from both the places and an inevitable flashback to fix the motive of the protagonist in a fight between good and evil.

Now, my question is simple. Why do these movies have to be so predictable? Director K S Ravindra joins the bandwagon of writer-turned-directors and stays close to the concoction he churned during his fledgling days. He is reluctant to tamper with a successful streak of mimicking the framing devices such as an honest cop (with a wife and a young kid) at the receiving end, a mother on her death bed, a caricatured heroine who plays a second fiddle in the flashback episode, an officer’s subordinates with a stench of loyalty, and many more to amp up the emotional quotient. In case of Power, we know what’s going to happen in the next, and the next scene. So, we don’t have to wait for a long time for the so called surprises to unfold on the screen. However, one or two so called twists have been handled well.

Power is a strange regression in the context of a cop-versus-politician kind of themes. There are some tokenistic attempts at making the hero a larger-than-life colossus. As ACP Baladev Sahay, Ravi Teja is comical and brooding. He mixes both the shades to surface the expressions archetypal of a cop with an ulterior motive. As Tirupathi, he chuckles and crackles to the core by reprising his acts from Khatarnaak and Kick. He along with Brahmanandam tries to stir a laugh riot but fails to pull off a Krishna-esque act. Even those few comic spin-offs are clasped in a cocoon of Balupu.

There is an ample scope to do things right with more research put into the script, but the makers paid no heed to it. Instead they have resorted to a big hero, colorful songs and old masala tropes to fill the film’s palette. Though the characters belong to multiple geographies, the diversity never seeps into - the story’s texture. The entire Kolkata episode with Telugu speaking people seems like one that’s shot locally and offers no justification. There are overt references to the uniform reminding the police force of their duty, but the hero puts you in a confused mode by wearing both white and khakhi clothes alternately.  All these make Power a powerless string of scrapes that hinge on the template of a routine cop drama. 

My Rating: Expectation - 6/10; Reality - 4/10

This review was originally written for Metro India newspaper.