Game Changer Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Sure Ram Charan can deliver a slow-motion shot like it’s no one’s business.
But are we REALLY, as a nation, now firmly at this point where we’re okay with that being good enough?
Nestled amid a never ending battle for the seat of Andhara Pradesh chief minister, Game Changer starts with a complex accident sequence, involving caved road because of corruption, a dying man seeing visions of a woman and child, immense rain, outlandish theatrics and general chaos. Its rapid, comes at your fast, and is a pretty clear promise of what’s to come. And truly, does the film deliver.
Before the initial sequence has had a chance to end, and for the viewer to realize what’s happening, you're introduced to the swashbuckling hero Ram Nandan, a police officer beating up bald, cartoonish bad guys. I use the term “swashbuckling” because that’s just how outdated and tiring the stereotype is at this point. One of the idiots being beaten up is blinged out, upon asking ki itna chains kyun pehna hai, he responds with “I’m a YouTube star”. Ram replies saying “I will show you some shorts”, and continues to beat him, no specific YouTube-related methodology is introduced into the beating. He is old-fashioned, but is trying to keep up.
Like a murderous, but hilarious old uncle.
Movies like Game Changer are not meant for critique, neither are they meant for a discerning cinema watching audience. Films like this, where tropes, both harmful and lazy, are deployed for the lack of character development and screenplay, are designing to appeal to the sheep mentality among us. To the space we are like to go sometimes where “brain rot” feels interesting, to those who like to chose political leaders basis on how popular they are. Its evident in sold out screenings where the audience begins to holler and scream from the first frame, and keeps up the enthusiasm atleast until half way through.
And look, I get it, I spent 30 minutes yesterday watching agirl eat different kinds of ice on her Instagram ground, I don’t want to be using my analytical brain at all times. But the fact that for comic relief, this Karthik Subbaraj story features hours of jokes about a guy named ‘Side Satyam’, who he exited his mother’s body side way and only walks sideways because of that, is such a hard core attempt to engage our fatigued minds, it’s almost impressive.
Not really though for real.
Game Changer isn’t lying about what it is — if the hero is a cop, means social justice will be served exclusively outlandishly. Snap a finger and a corrupt officer literally goes flying away? Sure, I’ll take it. I’ll even allow a sequence about a mall that doesn’t have adequate fire code adherence, toh its about to be demolished in 30 seconds, logon ki jobs aur dukaanein jaayein bhaad mein, sure. The film is loud, dumb, and stupid. However, the excessive hammering must ideally be part ofthe larger commentary, especially if you’re claiming to be a political thriller, don’t you think?
About 30 minutes into the film, when each sequence and unprovoked dance number begin to look like they could be the beginning, middle, or end of the film, who knows and who cares your brain finally accepts defeat and is bludgeoned into submission. I don’t exaggerate, my Apply watch warned me about the loud environment, congratulations to sound designer T Uday Kumar for making even inanimate objects wake the fuck up and acknowledge. I only feel bad for the toddler some wise parents had decided to bring to this roaring, ear-splitting experience all of us chose to be a part of.
Game Changer features an angry man, because which mainstream Indian movie doesn’t anymore lol, but is woke enough to also teach you anger management, lest we blame it for corrupting our soft squishy mind. This is achieved through an incredible song and dance number. Allow me to paint you a picture.
Ram has a new love interest Deepika, played by Kiara Advani who once again is a babe lost in the woods without her man. Deepika doesn’t like it when Ram gets angry toh one afternoon when he gets stopped by traffic police for jumping the signal and realizes the “no left turn” sign was broken, instead of unleashing his inner hulk, I chooses to do a Bharatnatyam — gymnastics mashup on the street obviously. Helpful text appears through the sequence telling you what to do when angry “Dance, reduce spice in your food, and hurt yourself with a rubber wrist band, though that last one would potentially make me more angry.
Dadi mein ke nuskho se bhara yeh gaana, should give you a pretty good idea of how smart this film takes its audience to be. Aur abhi toh mainey politics ki baatein shuru kari hi nahi hain.
2025 mien, if you are making a film about murder, corruption, politics and dynasties, and family to go beyond “main CM bana mainey paisa liya”, you simply have no right to claim you're providing commentary of any sort. Even if one doesn’t anticipate the film to magically turn insightful, and Deepika to become more important than a thing of beauty to be looked at and protected, one DOES expect the villain to have an arc beyond “I will kill anyone who comes in my way”. SJ Surya as Mopi Devi, the man vying for the top job plays this corrupt power hungry politician with the finesse of an over-enthusiastic Raavan at your local staging of Ramayan, which considering everything in front of you, is not really out of sync with the tone of the film. But 3 hours, it is way too much.
There is so much and so little going on in Game Changer at any given point of time, I sort of tuned it out, and started wondering why Ram Charan looks like he’s perpetually under the ‘Paris’ filter on Instagram. Skin smooth like a freshly bloomed flower. I wondered who thought of using the literal word “culture” pop on on screen as the lead actors are about to kiss, and push them apart? Gone are the days of the rose, or the boiling milk, the era of intellectual decay mainstream Indian cinema seems to be going through, requires movies to QUITE LITERALLY spell out, what is being conveyed.
As the climax sequence played out, which is just a vague idea of what a fight between SUVs and a JCBs would look like, I did try to consolidate how this film had made me feel. A film that insists EVERYTHING is epic, ensuring actually nothing is. And truly all I could come up with just admiration at how good Ram Charan is at slow-motion acting.
If that’s good enough for you, Game Changer is now in movie theatres.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Game Changers is….24 hours before I watched this film, I was at an event talking with Guy Pearce about ‘The Brutalist’. My life, like IPS Ram is also unpredictable only.
