Dhruva (2016 film)

Plot

A low-level party cadre Chengalrayudu is tying a flag to a street-lamp post. Suddenly his pregnant wife goes into labour, but he completely ignores it, as he is more dedicated to his leader and party. At the same time, the party's deputy leader visits the locality; as soon as he comes to know about this incident, the leader lends his car and orders his driver to immediately take the pregnant lady to the hospital; she delivers a baby boy named Venkanna before they get to the hospital. At the age of fifteen, Venkanna secures first rank in his 10th standard state exam and visits the party deputy-leader, now the chairman of the party and a member of the ruling coalition for his blessings with his father. While they are waiting in the party office for the leader to come in, they witness a murder of a rebel party candidate by their own revered leader due to caste-related comments by the rebel on him. When the leader asks Chengalrayudu to take the blame by saying that he killed the man due to rage about the rebel's comments, Venkanna volunteers to take the blame and is willing to go to jail, citing the leniency of juvenile laws in exchange for an MLA seat for his father in the upcoming by-election. The deal is agreed and carried out.

15 years later, trainee IPS officers Dhruva and his friends, discreetly assist the police in catching a gang which kidnapped four girls. One day Dhruva receives a cryptic text message on his phone from an anonymous number stating that he/she is aware of their discreet activities. In the evening, they go out to meet that person who is revealed to be Ishika, who loves Dhruva. Later that same night they happen to witness the murder of a man who is a social activist with the pretense of snatch theft. Dhruva and his friend catch the gang and their leader and hand them over to the police; however, four days later the leader of the gang comes to the IPS headquarters with the home minister. This political and organised crime comes as a shock to Dhruva and his friends. Dhruva takes them to his house and shows his research on connecting all small unrelated incidents into the global view of a hidden network of politicians, industrialists and criminals who bend the law for their own financial benefits. He singles out three prominent business oligarchs (a pharmaceutical mogul, a mineral magnate and a don). When he tries following one he realises that all three of them work as a group and they all work for a scientist Siddharth Abhimanyu. After the completion of his training, Dhruva is awarded medals for specializing in dealing with organized crime during training and also for being the best probationer of the batch, and is posted as the ASP of the Organized Crime Unit.

Dhruva discovers that Siddharth is Chengalrayudu's son Venkanna. After his release from juvenile detention center, Venkanna had his name changed and left India to complete his education abroad. After his graduation he returned to India and is now a well established scientist. Siddarth uses the medical field for the wrong reasons and his own profit. Chengalrayudu is now the incumbent health and welfare minister in the minority government headed by the party leader. At that time Angelina, a Swiss pharmaceutical company owner and activist tries to make generic medicines for life-threatening diseases available in India at low cost affordable by poor people. Siddharth's assassin kills Angelina before she can sign the agreement document with the government and shoots Dhruva at the same time. While he is recovering from the gunshot wound in the hospital, an electronic bug (GPS + audio transmitter) is implanted during surgery. Through the bug, Siddharth listens all of Dhruva's plans and continuously monitors his whereabouts and whatever he talks via audio transmission. Then comes evidence against Siddharth in the form of Akshara. She was a scientist at Siddharth's research lab, where a seaweed that can cure diabetes is found abundantly in the oceans. Siddharth tries to sell the technology and rights to extract medicine from the seaweed to multinational pharmaceutical companies but is opposed by Akshara. So Siddharth arranges goons and the goons rape and kill her. But before being killed, she records a video and stores it in an SD card so that someone will find it. But before Dhruva can find the card, Siddharth finds out and assigns Abbas to recover the card, but Dhruva tells Gowtham to get the card. He successfully gets the card after a fight with Abbas, but through the bug Siddharth knows this and kills Gowtham. Dhruva comes back to his special house where he finds a pin has been changed in a picture which turns out to be the picture of Naina Miss world of 2011 and a close aquintance of Siddharth whose girlfriend Preethi was also part of that event. Dhruva doubts whether Siddharth himself would have come to his house. Ishika checks the finger prints on the pin keeping the gun case Dhruva received from Siddharth in his posting ceremony and the finger prints match. A flashback reveals that Siddharth killed Preethi's father so that she doesn't participate in the competition and as she won't have a ticket to go to her father's funeral he requests to take her in his chartered flight and wins her over. Dhruva frantically searches for the bug which he eventually finds out in a series of thrilling events.

Dhruva captures Abbas and records all the information from him. He drugs Abbas and manipulates Siddharth into killing him. At the same time, Siddharth's father reads the changed medical report, which contains very good medical contracts for public welfare and multiple accusations against the CM. When Siddharth learns about this, he ask Chengalrayudu to pretend to have chest pains and move outside to hospital. The ruling party forces Chengalrayudu either to resign within 24 hours or he will be dismissed. Dhruva appeals to the CM that he has evidence and wants to arrest Siddharth, and he is granted permission to do so. Hence Siddarth kills his father using his goons in an accident and forces the CM to stop actions against him or he will lie that the CM killed his father for personal vengeance. But the next day at his father's state funeral, Dhruva arrests him on the CM's orders.

When Siddharth is arrested, Dhruva tells him that the medicine was patented in Akshara's name (despite Siddarth being the inventor) and will be made as generic medicine instead of a patent-protected one. It is also revealed that Chengalrayudu is alive, saved by Dhruva and the public funeral held was for Goutham. Dhruva makes a deal that he would save Siddharth's life for information and evidence on all of his criminal associates and activities and gives him a bulletproof vest to fake his death during his transport to court. They also plan to take down the set up planned by various VIPs to kill Siddharth when one of them gets close to Siddharth. Dhruva takes him down and pushes Siddharth back. To Dhruva's surprise, Siddharth does not wear the vest, and is fatally shot by his girlfriend Preethi as an act of vengeance for killing her father. Before dying, he tells Dhruva that he hid all the evidence in an SD card in the bulletproof vest, adding that he had not done it for the nation but because Dhruva had asked for it.

Cast

Development

It is an official remake of the Tamil film Thani Oruvan (2015). Navdeep is apparently cast as the one of Charan's cop friends which is an important role in the story. Ram Charan have reportedly got training himself under Sultan and Dangal fame bodybuilder Rakesh Udiyar. Rakul Preet Singh was selected to pair with Ram Charan for the second time after Shruti Haasan turned down the offer due to schedule conflict.

Crew

The film will feature music by Hiphop Tamizha, who composed for the Tamil original and cinematography is by P. S. Vinod.

Filming

The film was launched on 18 February 2016 and principal photography commenced on 22 February 2016.

Release

The film was initially set for release on 7 October, is scheduled for a worldwide release on 9 December 2016.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Hiphop Tamizha (a duo consisting of musicians Adhi and Jeeva), marking their debut in Telugu cinema. While the songs are newly composed, one track from the Tamil version was retained as an additional track.