Ram Charan plays a newly recruited IPS officer Dhruva. He makes friends with like minded police officers during the training period, who take time off during training period and silently go about helping police catch the criminals.
Like in many films in the past, Dhruvas boss daughter Ishika (Rakul) loves him but he does not show much interest in romance. When she confronts him and asks about his disappearing from time to time, Dhruva reveals that he has a secret hide away from where he tries to hunt various criminals based on newspaper reports.
During his chase, he figures out that one scientist named Siddharth Abhimanyu (Aravind Swamy) operates through a huge network of criminals, corporate biggies and politicians. Dhruva takes up the challenge of exposing the scientist. What happens next, is the story.
Remakes are tough to handle. Especially remaking a movie that has been highly praised by the critics is even harder.
Tamil movie Thani Oruvan received great ratings and compliments. So, director Surender Reddy has not changed much from the original story in this remake.
In Dhruva, he has stuck to the basic screenplay of the Tamil movie but he unnecessarily extended the romantic track on hero and heroine which does not work well with the plot.
This is a film where the villains character is more interesting than the heros. However, since the film has Ram Charan in the lead, the director has tweaked the original to make hero seem powerful.
The beginning of the movie is dull, but once the hero decides to take on villain Aravind Swamy, the drama picks up pace from then on.
Every move that hero makes, the villain quashes and pushes him to give up. And thats when tables get turned. This entire process is told very engagingly. And it turns very interesting due to the charismatic presence and acting of Aravind Swamy.
Not that Ram Charan has done badly, but it is Aravind Swamy who completely dominates the show in the second half.
Despite the fact that the movie has some twists, it is basically about good person vs evil person, cop vs criminal. But the novelty in the story is the way it is staged. The cat and mouse game between the hero and villain is interesting.
The scene of importance of 8 is also explained interestingly.
Well, these are the positives. Now lets see what has not worked. Even though the game is interesting, it dips many a time. Scenes like Navadeeps episode post interval and the climax portions should have been handled in a better manner as they stretch on quite a bit. This is when you feel the director could have chopped off a few scenes.
Apart from few minor issues, the movie is right on track. Director Surender Reddys slick direction, Aravind Swamys terrific acting and Ram Charans makeover added with good cinematography make the film worth a watch.
Overall, Dhruva is above average fare with story being its strength.
Greatandhra