Balayya, Bunny to revive waning cop stories

Actually, a series of duds like 'Touch Chesi Choodu', 'Officer' and and 'Kavacham', took the sting out of cop stories. But seasoned star Balakrishna, who delivered more hits as a cop in films like 'Rowdy Inspector' and 'Laxmi Narasimha, dons khakhis once again to revive the waning magic.

"Balakrishna has more hit movies as a fearless cop and no big Telugu star could match him. The cop stories suited his larger-than-life image and his powerful punchlines and action sequences made him a sought-after star for cop roles," says producer C Kalyan, who is making a police story with Nandamuri star to be directed by K S Ravikumar.

"We found that right script and Balakrishna liked the exciting line and he is looking forward to don khakis once again," adds Kalyan. Another star, Dr Rajasekhar, also carved a niche for himself with films like 'Ankusam'. "Dr Rajasekhar is again playing a cop in 'Kalki' and unearths the truth behind a mystery in the period saga. His towering screen presence and brooding avatar will enthrall fans," adds Kalyan, who is also producing 'Kalki' as well. "It is mere conicidence that I am making back-to-back cop stories with bankable stars," he points out.

Actually, even Tamil stars like Vikram(Swamy Square), Surya (Singham 3) received lukewarm response at the box-office last year. "Even cop stories demand novel plot but directors are trying to ride on the charisma of big heroes and stitching up a few action scenes and songs and believe that it will pay dividends. But they can't fool new-age audience with such mind-less stuff," says director Sudheer Varma, who reminds the success tasted by Tamil star Karthi with 'Khaki.

"That's the point I am trying to make. 'Khaki' was inspired by a real-life cop and hard-hitting film struck a chord with the masses and Karthi's superlative performance will be remembered," adds Sudheer. Among new-age Telugu stars Pawan Kalyan(Gabbar Singh), Mahesh Babu (Pokiri), Jr NTR (Temper) and Ram Charan (Dhruva) established themselves as new-age cops on screen.

"Now Naga Chaitanya is playing a cop, in Vijay Bhupathi's film, after mostly playing lover boy roles," says distributor Ramakrishna, who claims that even Chiranjeevi couldn't pull off a police story in his career and Venkatesh struggled hard in this genre," he adds. Giving a fillip to cop stories, Allu Arjun is set to don khakis in 'Icon'. "If that is true, Allu Arjun is bound to rock as upright police official." concludes director Samudra.