They Call Him OG Review: Expect A Pawan Kalyan Show And Nothing Much

Another southern superstar vehicle that alternates between soaring high and sputtering cumbersomely, They Call Him OG does not go completely off the rails thanks to the kinetic power that lead actor Pawan Kalyan lends the film.

The Telugu superstar goes full tilt at powering an erratic screenplay that delivers an abundance of superficial style. The film has plenty of arrows in its quiver but all of them hit their intended targets. But if you are a Pawan Kalyan fan, that lacuna is unlikely to take anything away from the sheen that the star possesses.

They Call Him OG is the sort of movie where what the protagonist is called is infinitely less important than the name of the actor on whose mass appeal the unfettered genre exercise rides. This is a Pawan Kalyan show raised to the power of infinity. So, who cares even if there isn't much else going for it?

The film is written and directed by Sujeeth of Saaho fame with an eye on pleasing the star's fan base with more than they can bargain for rather than on serving the cause of the medium and the script.

The screenplay, crammed with prolonged action sequences staged with aplomb, peppered with stray emotional passages designed to reveal another facet of the actor and sprinkled with dramatic verbal exchanges (especially one that takes place in a police station), spares no effort to cash in on charisma of the megastar. He has oodles of it.

Pawan Kalyan plays Ojas Gambheera, the OG of the title, a man of action shown to have been been trained by a seasoned samurai in Japan and exposed to the world of the yakuza gangsters.

After being off the grid for a decade, Gambheera returns to Bombay in the early 1990s to save the city from a dangerous gang led by an illegal arms smuggler, Omkar Mirajkar alias Omi Bhau (Emraan Hashmi), who plots the annihilation of the metropolis.

Pawan Kalyan's brooding presence springs to the aid of the film when the writing comes up short, which is particularly the case in the second half as subplots and secondary characters are summarily bunged in to beef up the conventional crime thriller when it begins to run out of steam.

They Call Him OG dishes out gory violence without ever pulling in its horns. Amid all the blood and fire – at the halfway point, the film lets us know that the hero is “a firestorm” – Gambheera is both protector and destroyer of mythic proportions.

Like an omniscient, omnipresent figure, surfaces wherever and whenever he is needed. He is invincible to boot. He has a phenomenal variety of weapons at his disposal – from the katana to the nunchaku, from the scimitar to the shotgun, from verbal firepower to fists of fury. And when he is done, he leaves behind a trail of bloodied bodies.

The metaphor of fire receives literal treatment. When Gambheera fights, the flames that he ignites singe his adversaries. But although no blaze can touch him, personal tragedies and untoward events stop him in his tracks a few times. He is prompt in delivering justice.

“No rule, no law, only Gambheera's law,” he intones in the presence of the Maharashtra chief minister (Upendra Limaye). When his principal foe, Omi Bhau, describes an ultimatum that Gambheera issues as a “warning”, his instant riposte is: it isn't a warning, it is OG's faisla (decision).

You know that the director of the film is a fan of the star when he sets up an entry scene that is grandly demonstrative as any such scene can be. The camera captures the hero's hand around the handle of a sword as he wades into a group of armed men. The focus is on his back until the sequence has done its bit to reveal the destruction that the protagonist can wreak.

Only then is the face of the rampaging actor revealed. Not that the audience needs to be told who the man behind the exploits is. The power of his presence is immense and the film does not lose a single opportunity to make the most of it.

That does not mean that none of the other actors are able to find their place under the sun. Emraan Hashmi as the main antagonist gives a solid account of himself. And so does Sudev Nair in the garb of a ruthless gangster named Jimmy, son of a criminal-politician (Tej Sapru).

The cast has several other fine actors but with the exception of Sriya Reddy, nobody is allowed to elbow their way to the centre of the action. Both Prakash Raj as Satya Dada, OG's mentor, and Arjun Das as Arjun, who has an old score to settle with the hero, are granted limited opportunities.

The worst served is Priyanka Arul Mohan, cast as OG's romantic interest-turned-wife. Her role is no more than an extended cameo.

The technical departments are topnotch. Cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran's lighting and lensing give the film an impressive visual range that straddles a wide spectrum of hues from the ruddy and fiery to the bright and warmly bluish.

Film editor Naveen Nooli has to inevitably give in at times to the fan-service that the film is devoted to and let several scenes stretch longer than they should. Thaman's musical score is propulsive enough to keep pace with the volatility of the action on the screen.

Pawan Kalyan, as is his wont, hits the ground running. But too much running from one thing to another without establishing clear links between robs the film of sustained coherence.

Verdict: Expect the world from the star (you won't be disappointed) but much less from the film as a whole and They Call Me OG might just work for you.