Movie: Ruler
Rating: 1/5
Banner: happy movies
Cast: Nandamuri Balakrishna, Sonal Chauhan, Vedhika, Prakash Raj, Bhumika, Jayasudha and others
Story: Parachuri Muralic
Music: Chirantan Bhatt
Cinematography: C Ram Prasad
Edit: Kotagiri
fights: Ram-Lakshman, Anbu Arivu
Producer: C Kalyan
Directed by: KS Ravikumar
Publication date: December 20, 2019
After the successful film ‘Jai Simha’, senior actor Nandamuri Balakrishna, director KS Ravikumar and producer C Kalyan team up for ‘Ruler’. The film didn’t cause much ado, but it’s expected to be one of this year’s biggest releases for a variety of reasons.
Let’s see if this successful combination has resulted in a different winner this time?
Story:
A company president (Jayasudha) rescues a badly injured man, who in turn rescues her on another occasion. She adopts him as her son. She calls him Arjun Prasad (Balakrishna) and makes him the new president of her company.
When Balakrishna proposes to take up a solar energy project on behalf of his company in Uttar Pradesh, a politician threatens him. The locals recognize him as Dharma, a police officer.
Why and how did Dharma lose his memory and what is his rivalry with Thakur, the local preacher?
Performances by artists:
Nandamuri Balakrishna played a role of two different shades – a software company owner and a police officer. In both variations, he looks clumsy with his outrageous wigs and costumes. In some places he looks fat and in other places he is a bit slender.
Sonal Chauhan and Vedhika have played crazy characters and look like girls without brains. However, they have provided enough glam show.
Prakash Raj, Bhumika, Jayasudha and Nagineedu. have all played monotonous characters.
Technical excellence:
Music director Chirantan Bhatt has given very regular and reasonable tunes. Cinematography by C Ram Prasad is good. Editing is uneven. Dialogues also lack effectiveness.
Highlights:
Not much
Disadvantage:
Outdated story
Formula narration
Boring scenario
silly comedy
Romance from the 70’s and 80’s
Analysis
While all the other senior stars are experimenting with stories and trying hard to connect with the current generation with new types of characters, it is surprising that Nandamuri Balakrishna still agrees to make movies with scripts from the 80s and 90s. His choice of scripts is proof that he doesn’t update himself.
The problem is not in the clichéd storylines, but in the hackneyed narration and the insanely bad physical appearances. Director KS Ravikumar, who also seems to have stuck in the 90s, has presented Balakrishna in a garish avatar.
The story of Parachuri Murali is outdated. Balakrishna herself had acted in many such stories decades ago. Still, Murali and Ravikumar have told it in an outdated way with pointless comedic scenes.
Some sample scenes:
1) Sonal Chauhan is the owner of an IT company. But she knows nothing about IT hackers. When her assistant introduces some pickpockets as IT hackers, she blindly believes and takes them to Bangkok to hack into hero Balakrishna’s computer. We see cheap comedy in Bangkok.
2) When an IT worker has a complaint about sexual harassment by a foreign company manager, her project manager tells her to work with the manager so that they would get the project.
3) Vedhika (in a flashback episode) in her first meeting with Balakrishna asks him to look at every inch of her body and let her know which body part wasn’t beautiful so she would have cosmetic surgery (naa structure lo ee part baledo cheppu….adi operation cheyinchukunta).
4) A comedy track featuring Saptagiri with cow urine and dung.
In addition to these silly episodes, there are lectures on the greatness of Telugu farmers who can cultivate even barren lands. Then there is also a speech against the caste system by Balakrishna.
All of these scenes are straight out of poorly made commercial movies from a bygone era. It’s a wonder how Balakrishna approved such a crude and outdated story.
Frankly, we have to use a microscope to look for one positive aspect in this movie that is rife with boredom.
Bottom line: Oh my Balaya!
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