‘Pushpa 2 – The Rule’ review: Allu Arjun is on fire in a punishingly long sequel

The sequel to the 2021 blockbuster Pushpa: The Rise sees the red sandalwood smuggler Pushpa Raj (Allu Arjun) waging wars on multiple fronts. Old rival Srinu (Sunil) and his ill-tempered wife Daksha (Anasuya Bharadwaj) want to regain control of the smuggling syndicate that Pushpa now controls. Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat (Fahadh Faasil), the police officer whom Pushpa roundly humiliated in the previous film’s climax, is itching for revenge.

The matter of Pushpa’s reconciliation with his half-brother Mohan (Ajay), who refuses to accept him, lingers. A new enemy is a politician with a nasty brother.

Pushpa even single-handedly takes on the Japanese yakuza, but we never learn the outcome of this encounter. Writer-director Sukumar has a lot of ground to cover, and isn’t going to allow such a basic plotting pothole to interrupt his wild ride.

For all its threats of extending Pushpa’s story arc, Pushpa – The Rule wallows in the zone of fan service. Over 200 minutes, Sukumar rolls out echoes, repetitions and throwbacks to the first movie. Pushpa’s earthy swagger, the raised shoulder that is the result of childhood trauma, the aphoristic speech – these discoveries from the first film are repackaged and dialled up many notches for a follow-up that is overtly self-conscious of its legacy.

Gobsmacking over-the-topness compensates for the absence of the element of surprise that made the predecessor noteworthy. Pushpa is both at the peak of his powers and in the throes of hubris.

He has taken to referring to himself in the third person. His every entrance is an event. He is bedecked in gold jewellery and dressed in shiny shirts with tropical prints (For all his proclamations, he is both flower and fire.)

He is worshipped by his wife Srivalli (Rashmika Madnanna) and his loyal followers led by Keshav (Jagadeesh Pratap Bhandari). Pushpa’s gesture of running his hand across his throat is now a dance move.

Pushpa, Pushpa, Pushpa! It’s all I hear, Shekhawat complains. Played by Fahadh Faasil like a fading photocopy of his comical gangster in the Malayalam movie Aavesham, Shekhawat is more buffoon than fearsome adversary this time round.

Why doesn’t Pushpa do himself and everybody else a favour by bumping off Shekhawat? Where is the forest department when Pushpa is denuding nature? Ours is not to ask why but merely to gape.

Sukumar’s skill for set-pieces of escalating insanity leads to several show-stopping, unhinged moments. Here is Pushpa dancing in a frenzy while kitted out like the goddess Kali. Here he is overpowering a minor army of goons with his hands tied behind his back.

Pushpa declaims on behalf of women’s rights, no less. The only cause he doesn’t take up is environmentalism. Thousands of red sandalwood trees die in Pushpa’s reign, with everybody too busy counting the crores to mourn them.

Demi-god, ecocidal maniac, fashion icon, bedroom tiger, a permanent thorn in the side of his enemies – the smuggler steals the film from the others, which is easily achieved since the competition is weaker this time.

Sukumar’s appetite for excess remains unsated even at the end of an overly long run-time. (A third movie, Pushpa – The Rampage, is on the cards.) The main progress made from the previous movie is in terms of the characters of Pushpa and Srivalli.

Rashmika Mandanna has several strong sequences to justify her presence in a narrative about and steered by Allu Arjun’s maverick gangster. Mandanna’s chemistry with Arjun helps overcome the ickiness of some of their shared scenes.

Arjun is on fire, displaying a ferocious commitment to executing the impossible. From using a burning shoulder to light a cigarette to bringing down a government to please his wife, Pushpa is always rivetting, like a smouldering carwreck in slow motion. Arjun breathes life and purpose into a cartoonish character, traversing degrees of derangement with the same ease with which Pushpa crushes his rivals.