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Just when Ram Charan registered a massive hit with director Sukumar’s Rangasthalam, his next film Vinaya Vidheya Rama with director Boyapati Srinu undid years and years of his hard work. Vinaya Vidheya Rama was released in 2019 and was declared a flop.

In this week’s Wahiyat Wednesday, let us take a look at how cinematic liberties fly past the roof and logic doesn’t matter at all in Vinaya Vidheya Rama. The film’s stunt sequences will make you forget the concept of gravity and re-learn science.

Ram (Ram Charan) is an orphan, who is found in a bush by young orphaned boys. They take care of Ram as their own brother. Ram loves his brothers so much that he decides to drop out of school so that they can get proper education and pursue their dreams. Ram even takes to violence to ensure they are safe and protected.

His elder brother Bhuvan Kumar (Prashanth) gets posted as an Election Commission Officer in Bihar. Enter the brooding don Raja Bhaiyya (Vivek Oberoi) who controls the area. When Bhuvan and Raja Bhaiyya lock horns, Ram travels from South India to North India in a matter of a few minutes to save him.

All it takes is two stunt sequences to decide if the joke is on the actors or the viewers. In this case, it is on both. Let’s take you through them.

Ram Charan is at the airport with his family and is about to board a flight. He is returning from Gujarat. He receives a call from his elder brother Bhuvan. Bhuvan is kidnapped by Raja Bhaiyya and is on the border of India with no network. But, who cares, he runs several kilometres dodging several bullets to get a phone signal. And he is successful in his attempt too.

This is where Boyapati amps up the scene. The most sensible way for Ram Charan, who is already at an airport, is to board a flight to reach the destination. But, he leaves the airport, jumps on top of a train, rides for hundreds of kilometres, then hops on a horse to find his brother. Perhaps time stood still for Boyapati in this scene.

Any villain in a commercial film is shown to have a larger-than-life image. Here too, Raja Bhaiyya is menacing. In Bhuvan’s words, he is the ‘scum of the society’ and ‘devil of democracy’. Just to give you an idea of how menacing he is, here’s some context. In one particular scene, in order to remind the people of a village Raja once inhabited who he is, he holds a poisonous snake and lets the snake bite him. Not once, but four times. In what you call a twist, the snake dies. So does the audience watching the film. *Cue powerful background music*

Kiara Advani plays Sita in the film and there is not one noteworthy scene of her. On top of that, the camera pans from top to bottom as she jogs on the treadmill. Sneha gets a meaty role in the film but is reduced to caricature. Prashanth, in his comeback film, had the most bizarre punchlines in his entire career. He is just waiting for the camera to pan at him so he could mouth these lines.

Vinaya Vidheya Rama turned out to be a cringe-fest where no one questioned logic. After the film’s failure, Ram Charan wrote a note acknowledging the film’s abysmal performance and promised to come up with entertaining projects henceforth.

He is, however, yet to have a release after Vinaya Vidheya Rama. Therefore, Ram Charan must have his hopes pinned on SS Rajamouli’s RRR and Koratala Siva’s Acharya. We certainly do.

Author

India today

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