Chanakya movie review highlights: A meandering drama under the guise of a spy-thriller

Known for Tamil films like 'Mr Chandramouli' and 'Naan Sigappu Manithan' director Thiru makes his Telugu debut with

Gopichand

, Mehreen Pirzada, Zareen Khan starrer, the

spy-thriller

'

Chanakya

'.

Arjun (Gopichand) is an undercover RAW marshall from Delhi who is an expert at nabbing terrorists with his band of boys (also consisting of Adarsh Balakrishna and Raja Chembolu) and has a 100% success rate. He also works at a bank and goes by the name Ramakrishna, a la Salman Khan in 'Ek Tha Tiger'. He even gets scenes with people wondering where he keeps disappearing off to at random intervals, just like in the Hindi film. When he makes an enemy out of India's most wanted Ibrahim Qureshi (Rajesh Khattar) and his son Sohail (Upen Patel), things take a turn for the worse.

While the first half starts off with a high-octane covert operation, it soon flounders and takes a turn into meandering randomness featuring Aishwarya (Mehreen Pirzada). There are even random songs and tacky jokes, which will make your teeth grind, thrown in for good measure. 'Chanakya' comes back on track eventually but everything about the film so far is predictable, after the numerous spy-thrillers to hit the silver screen. The only thing setting it apart is how bad Arjun is at following orders of his senior (Nasser), yet why his behaviour is tolerated is a mystery.

With a first half featuring kaffiyehs and slow motions galore, it remains to be seen if things pick up in the second half.