‘Game Changer’ (2025) Movie Review - Brain Rot

There comes a scene at the beginning of S. Shankar's Game Changer where IAS officer Ram Nandan (Ram Charan), leaning out from a helicopter, uses a sword to cut loose the criminals tied on the railway track. It all must have sounded crazy on paper, but this insanity is not felt by the audience when they watch this stunt. In fact, you feel almost nothing throughout the 2 hours and 45 minutes runtime of Game Changer. Shankar deploys his images like an army commander ordering his soldiers to launch an attack on the enemies with tanks and machine guns. There is so much noise that you become numb. The images are flat and impersonal, but Shankar tries to inject energy into them with drone shots, 360-degree camera rotations, and a swift pace that seems like a race between narrative and emotion. The latter is left so far behind that it disappears into oblivion. I have never enjoyed watching a Shankar film, be it the Robot movies, I, Anniyan, or Indian. Here is a filmmaker whose style is so dated that even his new films give you the impression that they must have been made 30 or 40 years ago. It's 2025, and Shankar still uses clumsy cartoon music to deliver "jokes." It's 2025, and Shankar still considers lame, creepy behavior humorous. A man ogles Deepika (Kiara Advani), and his horny meter gets a visual representation. We also see a love meter and an angry meter. The former dies, while the latter reaches 100 while watching Game Changer.

What is the film about? During the opening scene, Chief Minister Bobbili Sathyamoorthy (Srikanth) experiences a heart attack (can you blame him, given the grotesque closeups he gets?), and on the way to the hospital, a portion of a bridge collapses. When the crowd notices Bobbili, they whisper about corruption, scams, etc. Shankar might as well be present in that crowd. Through Game Changer, he (once again) points his finger toward the politicians and scoffs, "Huh, look at these criminals!" To tackle the rot in the system, Shankar erects a pure, virgin figure whose anger, even when released on an innocent person (he hits Deepika's father), carries an undercurrent of righteousness. Ram is so good that even his flirtatious remarks - bordering on creepiness - and misguided anger manage to attract Advani's character. S. J. Suryah, as Bobbili Mopidevi, fulfills the function of a menacing stick figure whose sole aim in life is to sit on the Chief Minister's chair. This goon and his men come across as less repulsive than Deepika and Ram's family members. When Ram says he doesn't see any benefit in marriage, his family members become so sad that it feels as if they are preparing themselves for a funeral. Shouldn't they be proud that their son is doing his best to fight corruption? What's this stupid obsession with marriage? Why elevate it to such a high level? And then there is Deepika, who, after Ram's suspension, expresses relief that now, at least, he can focus on wedding preparations. If she had any brains, she would be as worried as Ram about the re-emergence of malversation in his absence. Before fixing the system, Ram should first fix the people close to him.

Ram Charan smiles, wears his glasses with swag, asks for our sympathy with his stutters, and tries to be "cool" and "indestructible." His efforts get lost in a film that's merely content with transferring the script's pages to the screen with no imagination, no enthusiasm. Shankar is either himself too bored by his scenes or has made Game Changer for the reel-watching audience. No moment is allowed to stay on the screen for more than five seconds. Shankar, for a song, creates colorful houses that are placed inside a circle, but the set (I don't think it's real) looks like a selfie point, not a proof of inventiveness. For the first half an hour, I comforted myself in the arms of nostalgia by reminiscing about my college days (I lived in Vizag for almost nine years). Ram, at one point, dances outside Jagadamba Theater - a place where I watched films like Ungli, Suicide Squad, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and Sanju. In another scene, he dances near the RK Beach bus stop to control his anger. I spent four or five years in this area because my hostel was situated there, and I remember walking on the beach at night after having dinner. Ah, good old days. But this trip down memory lane, like time, became ephemeral because Game Changer quickly, with a lot of noise, tedium, and ugliness, entered my head. It ultimately left me with the thought that Shankar should first improve his skills in filmmaking before dreaming of improving the political system.

Final Score- [1/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times