The 2016 Telugu movie Dhruva starring Ram Charan, Arvind Swamy, and Rakul Preet Singh is a remake of the 2015 Tamil movie Thani Oruvan. It’s a crime thriller dealing with organized crimes and the medical mafia. Read Dhruva movie script analysis below.
Dhruva Story Inspirations
The Police officers close some cases without complete investigation because of pressure from the public and political parties. It is very common in India that some rape cases create public outrage (in some cases fueled by political ambitions) that puts a lot of pressure on the Judiciary. There are several examples where the judgment is given without evidence and proper investigation. This is the central theme of the movie Dhruva.
Abhinaya portrayed a rape victim who records the statement before her death which plays a key role in the movie. In this scene, the rape and murder of the victim are to cover up another major crime. They further expressed it through the beginning sequence of the movie where Ram Charan along with his friends catches several criminals who are using petty crimes to cover up more severe and ambitious crimes.
Dhruva Movie Character Arc
Ram Charan plays a sincere police officer who is ambitious to catch a criminal who is leading Hundreds of criminals. His character is flawless at the beginning, but as he faces a criminal with superior intellect, he falls prey to depression. But gets over it and defeats him in his own game. The character would have become linear without it. Overall, it’s a well-developed character.
Arvind Swamy plays the role of a scientist and a criminal mastermind. This would sound familiar to the people who followed the 80s and 90s comics. Fortunately, the characterization has not many similarities and is more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing with a charming personality. He never trusts or loves anyone and is ready to take calculated risks. His characterization is more or less linear. Most other characters are either less important or have limited scope. There is not much change in the characterization of others over time.
Dhruva Movie Story
We can conveniently split the story into 4 parts. The first part includes character introductions which are to some extent boring and passable. The second part includes conflict between Dhruva and Siddharth, which is the very exciting part of the story. The third part is how Siddharth decides to learn more about Dhruva instead of killing him and starts his evil game. The fourth part is how Dhruva learns about Siddharth’s plan and outsmarts him with the help of his friends. Dhruva worked out very well because all these parts have almost equal run-time. And each segment has its twists and turns.
Dhruva Movie First half Script
There is no conflict in the first segment. The beginning sequence is interesting and establishes the lead actor very well. The flashback episode at the very beginning is boring and comes as a speed breaker. The second segment starts with Dhruva finding out Siddharth is the mastermind behind many crimes and selecting him as his opponent. The pacing in this segment is very fast and it ends with Dhruva failing in his mission. This is important because Dhruva underestimates Siddharth all this time and this failure comes as a surprise.
Dhruva Movie Second half Script
The third segment has Siddharth enjoying knowing more about his first enemy. Although Siddharth got rid of many people in the past, Dhruva is different as he reached up to him through investigation. Siddharth feels that it’s important to know more about him to take precautions. Dhruva fails miserably in his every step and gets into depression. Ishika motivates him to get over his fears and fight back. This segment ends when Dhruva finds out about the bug Siddharth placed in his body and saves Ishika from getting killed. The fourth segment is collecting evidence against Siddharth and proving him guilty. This is again an entertaining part instead of being thrilling.
Dhruva Movie Major Flaws
Although Dhruva looks like a solid thriller at a glance, it has several serious flaws in the script. You can read some of the major flaws of the movie below.
Dhruva Movie Character Development
Have you noticed the wife or mother of any major character in the movie?
Most of the characters in the movie lack backstories and we only see characters that have some relation to major characters. Navdeep and Ram Charan have no families in the story. This may come as a surprise, but no one shows up when Navadeep dies or when Ram Charan gets shot. We never see the mother of Rakul or the mother of Arvind Swamy (after the delivery scene at the beginning).
Involving families of actors provides more drama at the expense of run time. But avoiding them ended up as the biggest mistake in the story. At least, they should have improved the remake version over the Tamil original. It is acceptable that while writing such an original screenplay, the writers have missed such details in the original Tamil version but lifting the script as it is without developing it is not.
Dhruva Movie Minor flaws
Apart from that, Arvind Swamy doesn’t search for the memory card after the death of Navadeep, but Dhruva does. We least expect such mistakes from an intelligent character. He should have probed the area for it instead of enjoying his death like villains in old movies. However, this can be considered a mistake of a character as people commit such mistakes.
Network of Arvind Swamy
Arvind Swamy handles everything related to Dhruva himself. He doesn’t take the help of others at any stage. Understandably, he doesn’t believe in others, but he could have taken the help of someone else at some stage. The film loses track of the cat and mouse game towards the end and it appears like Arvind Swamy has lost interest in it. It seems that Arvind Swamy has no contacts other than whom we see in the film. He could have tried to kill Ram Charan using his contacts after getting arrested. At least, he could have blackmailed him through other means, but he gives up and attends court.
Conclusion
Dhruva is a brilliant script in recent times, but it could have become a classic if the writers have taken care of minor details. While the filmmakers credit themselves for the screenplay of the remake, they didn’t add any value to the original script.
