Before I get to the review of Pushpa 2: The Rule, I need to mention that despite a few disagreements with some of the creative choices in Pushpa: The Rise, I found it quite an enjoyable experience. In fact, when Allu Arjun won the Best Actor National award for his performance—a decision that triggered a heated debate among film buffs—I defended it, considering how the actor made admirable use of his physicality to deliver a performance that, when you really think about it, isn't easy to pull off. And as to the question of whether performances in masala movies deserve awards or not, I say, why not?
Now, with this knowledge and the appearance of Fahadh Faasil in mind, it goes without saying that I went into Pushpa 2: The Rule with considerably raised expectations. And for a while there—and this would comprise the first two hours of its runtime—the film was doing quite a decent job. I would even go so far as to say that I found the storytelling quality in the first couple of hours a major improvement upon that of its predecessor. What we witness here is Allu Arjun and Fahadh Faasil being their quirkiest, most energetic selves, utilising every fibre in their bodies to create situations that alternate between serious and funny.
I even took delight in how, in these early portions, Sukumar gave enough breathing space to the serious situations without unnecessarily diffusing them with humour, instead opting to place jokes during the most appropriate conditions. I also smiled at how Allu Arjun's character and body language eerily resembled, to an extent, that of the iconic gangster roles that Mohanlal did in the 80s and early 90s in Malayalam. I was thinking of films such as Spadikam and Rajavinte Makan. And since both Pushpa movies deal with a fair amount of power games and political manouevering, there were a couple of situations that reminded me of The Godfather films, like when a politician who, despite being funded by Pushparaj, refuses to accept him as an ally or take a picture with him.
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But something seemed to have gone wrong when Sukumar and his team went about planning the movie's final hour, especially towards its closing moments. Here, the film runs out of ideas and fuel and takes an exasperating nose dive that undoes everything that came before it. Things get so ridiculous—even with suspended disbelief and everything—to the point that I, and those sitting next to me, began to shift in their seats uncomfortably, not to mention making the kind of sounds usually associated with an agitated state of mind.
Watching the entire third act was the equivalent of going to a hotel that lures you with the promise of a hot water bath but then asks you to take a cold shower instead and later shuts off the water supply while you are in the middle of it, all lathered up. I wished the makers shifted all the time and resources required for staging all those weird-sounding songs to crafting more unconventional, quirky, and out-of-the-box situations for its characters instead of resorting to extremely outdated cliches.
This is the second movie this year—after Amal Neerad's Bougainvillea--that treats Fahadh Faasil as a joke. I was extremely disappointed with the way they wrapped up his character arc. When the film takes a sudden detour in the third act and shows us events that by now we have seen—and got tired of—in many South Indian movies, such as the idea of using a woman's honour to enhance the heroism of Pushparaj, the lacklustre songs, and Rashmika's largely inert presence, you begin to sense a gradual depletion of energy. The entire last hour feels like a beautifully shot but atrociously written and performed teleserial. I left the theatre confused and furious.
Film: Pushpa 2: The Rule
Director: B Sukumar
Cast: Allu Arjun, Fahadh Faasil, Rashmika Mandanna, Sunil
Rating: 2/5
