Another Sankranti release, Nandamuri Balakrishna’s Dictator has created a buzz — firstly because this is his 99th film and secondly, all his festival releases so far have been super hits.
Directed by Srivaas, the film stars Anjali and Sonal Chauhan as the leading ladies.
Chandrasekhar aka Chandu (Balakrishna) is a meek guy working in a supermarket.
He meets Indu (Sonal), an aspiring actress, who is harassed by some goons who are after her brother (Rajiv Kanakala), a witness to a murder attempted by them.
Indu shares her problems with Chandu, who vows to help her and kills all the goons. Meanwhile, Chandu’s colleague steals Rs 5 lakh for her daughter’s marriage, but Chandu takes the blame when police arrives.
Soon, it is revealed that Chandu is not the soft-spoken guy seen till now and why he chose to lead a supermarket employee’s life becomes one of the big twists in the movie.
In his first movie with Balakrishna, Srivaas chooses the regular script with the regular formula, eyeing Balakrishna fans.
The typical Balakrishna dialogues, action scenes and regular masala are aimed at hardcore Balayya fans.
The first half is very interesting with some really good scenes, but when it comes to the second half, the director loses his grip on the story. Also, the first half of the film and one of the action episodes has been copied from The Equilizer that stars Denzel Washington.
Instead of going with stronger villains against Balakrishna, the director chose a wrong person —Rati Agnihotri.
Performance-wise, Balakrishna is at his usual best histrionics. The two-shaded character is safe in his hands. Even at this age, the actor shows a lot of energy and grace, especially, in action and dance sequences.
Sonal Chauhan in the first half adds to the glamour and Anjali’s meaty role in the second half too blends well with the story.
The only miscast was Rati Agnihotri, who didn’t exactly fit as a lady villain. Prudhvi, Hema and Shakalaka Shankar evoked a few laughs. Nasser, Suman, Shayaji Shinde and Posani played their parts well.
Thaman’s music was good and Ratnam’s dialogues had the typical Balakrishna punches.Writers Kona Venkat and Gopi Mohan, who were also part of the screenplay, delivered a regular entertainer, nothing new.
The makers, too, during promotions, said that the film has nothing extraordinary in it. However, Dictator is a complete mass entertainer with all the masala, strictly for Balakrishna fans!
