'Dheera' is the latest box-office release in the town. In this section, we are going to review the action entertainer.
Plot:
Ranadheer (Laksh Chadalawada) understands only one language: that of money. Hamsalekha (Himaja), a political broker, wants Raj Guru (Bhushan Kalyan), a patient on the verge of dying, to be moved from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad. This is a highly confidential exercise and therefore, airways can't be used. The patient must be transported in a fully-equipped ambulance via road.
Ranadheer alone can accomplish this task because he is formidable to do the job. Dr. Amrutha (Neha Pathan) and anesthetist Kiran (Mirchi Kiran) are there to tend to the patient while Ranadheera has to fight the villains who might attack the ambulance from any side. Meanwhile, ACP Karna (Bharani Shankar), opposition leader Chanakya (Bobby Bedi), CM Krishna Murthy (Suman) and an infant whose life is endangered amplify the plot.
Post-Mortem:
'Dheera' is a bloated action entertainer where the hero can do the impossible and the villains, despite being political giants, know nothing about deploying efficient armed men. Fair! This template is nothing exceptionally awkward. Even star directors and superstars have tasted success by doing illogical actioners. The recent 'Salaar' had a couple of atrociously written scenes where logic goes out the window. But those hits had loads and loads of starry charisma. Their heroes made us forget about logic with their swag and screen presence. Laksh Chadalavada, the hero of 'Dheera', ends up making his film look like a vanity project. And that's where the actual problem resides.
Emotions are sought to be milked by using the life of a barely one-year-old kid. This worked with 'Vikram' and didn't work with Tollywood's under-written answer to 'Vikram' - 'Saindhav'. In 'Dheera', the infant's existential threat is barely an element that the viewer is made to factor in. Life-threatening races, dumb sidekicks, doctors talking among themselves like laymen, clueless political moguls, and a laughable black money sub-plot dot the length and breadth of the film.
To be fair to the movie, it is not unbearable. A 10-minute rom-com segment feels absurd but the audience's fears are flipped when it is revealed that there is more to the segment. Ranadheer can laugh at himself and question his morals. And Laksh is not that bad either. With better padding and a good script, he might taste moderate success at the box office.
Sai Karthik's music and PC Kannan's cinematography are unoriginal. The making values are affected by the wrong choice of indoor locations and the poor colour palette.
Closing Remarks:
'Dheera' doesn't care about the grey cells of the audience. It wants to be a mindless actioner sans logic. But its hero lacks the starry charm to ensure that it doesn't look silly.
