A racy action thriller

Villain-turned- hero Gopichand has had a mixed time in his career of nearly two decades. Especially, none of the five films he did in the last three years went on to enable him establish a slot of his own in the Telugu film industry.

One among them was much delayed in production and when it was ready for release, did not make it to the theatres despite a release date being announced.

However, 'Chanakya' managed a decent hype for itself during its pre-release tenure and it has an interesting premise of a cloak-and-dagger story to go along, basing itself in the Indo-Pak political scenario.

Director Thiru, primarily a Tamil film director over the past nine years has entered the Telugu film industry with this venture.

In a setting which reminds viewers of the Salman Khan starrer 'Ek Tha Tiger' which was a game of one-upmanship between the undercover agents of India and Pakistan (with Katrina Kaif, playing a Pakistani agent) the film launches itself into hyper action mode right from the first scene.

There are references to Dawood Ibrahim in the film (called Ibrahim Qureshi, played by Rajesh Khattar) who is most wanted in India and Gopichand is keen to beard the lion in his own den.

After a successful heist of one of Ibrahim's most trusted lieutenants from across the border, our hero gets another shot at taking down the bad guys from Karachi.

Only that he has to shoulder the responsibility of freeing four of his colleagues who are in captivity on enemy soil. The Establishment does not want him to take it up, as it has an important global summit coming up.

Yet, the undercover operation called 'Mission Chanakya' takes place, which is what the second half of the film is all about.

With two heroines, the fetching Mehreen Kaur and Zareen Khan taking up their assigned roles as required, the director keeps the focus sharply on the gravity-defying stunts and fights of the hero as he goes about, demolishing one barrier after the other to free his batchmates.

This is where the film displays its ability to keep the viewer engrossed, with interesting twists and outmanoeuvring moves, justifying the film title.

To conclude, it is surely a film worth spending time, given that the locales shown and the ambience created are closer to reality and the incidents on which the narrative is based is an ongoing issue today.