Bruce Lee Review: In the beginning of the movie, there is an Al-Jihadi terrorist attack scene. 13 years back, in the film Sontham Srinu Vaitla gave one of the best comedy scenes pertaining to Jihaad. The humour he produced those days is manifold greater than what he delivered in the recent years. It is clear that he started taking his subjects too seriously and lost grip on extracting comic timing from simple moments. He got obsessed with bug budget, dons, bullets and what not. However, it looks like some retrospection has been done and this time, he slightly reduced that hullaballoo and made a relatively simpler film, Bruce Lee. Thus, a sort-of relief for the audience who were tired of his formula cinema. Bruce Lee isn’t a different and unique film either. It’s just that it didn’t fall into the prey of the Srinu Vytla’s over-used recipe.
Karthik aka Bruce Lee (Ram Charan Tej) is a stuntman, who loves his family, and a sacrificing brother for the sister (Kriti Kharbanda). Right from childhood, he has been doing silent sacrifices and the middle-class father (Rao Ramesh) is unaware of it (probably, to deliver a sentiment-cum-realization dialogue when he is freshly-stabbed in the later part of the film). An alliance comes from the boss (Sampath Raj) of the father for Bruce Lee’s sister. All is well, until Karthik learns the ulterior motives of the boss. The rest of the film is about thwarting his plans.
The film goes at a decent pace. Though utterly predictable, the scenes don’t lead to boredom. The highest levels of predictability can be seen whenever Rakul Preet enters the frame. It indicates that the next five minutes will kick-start a song. The twists are not many and not new too, which in a way saves the film without getting too complex. The movie has all the ingredients of a commercial pot-boiler. But, what made it watchable is using the ingredients mildly. Especially, the action sequences were kept crisp and quick. The melodrama was kept minimal too, despite the scope. The father characterization could have easily gone typical, but it was cleverly written. Rao Ramesh was neither made comical like Chandra Mohan in Dhee nor an emotional like Prakash Raj in Dookudu. This time, it was cleverly somewhere in between. Credit shall go to the writers and Rao Ramesh for making that character click. There were some over-smart coincidences in the film.
Ram Charan has come a long way. Of course, he still has a long way to go too. His dances in the film were very impressive. He has improved his comic timing too. So far, Bruce Lee can be his best performed role. Brahmanandam was good, as usual. There are some consistent hilarious bits in the film which also boost the film in regular intervals. Chiru’s cameo looks forced but it was refreshing to see him after a hiatus. Thaman’s music is bearable. ‘Le Chalo’ was shot beautifully.
On the whole, the team of Bruce Lee played it very safe. Probably, Srinu Vytla learnt a lessons to KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid.
Bruce Lee Movie Title Song Making Video:
