Game Changer Movie Review: Ram Charan starrer political thriller offers familiar tropes, overly preachy political commentary

Game Changer Movie Review

Many parallels can be drawn between S. Shankar’s 2024 Tamil vigilante action film Indian 2 and 2025 political action thriller Game Changer. Both films offer overly moralistic, heavy-handed political commentary almost like a school skit. Both films had triple roles.

While Haasan’s Senapathy is an all-encompassing powerful figure, Ram Charan’s Ram Nandan/Hari Charan/Appanna are less imposing, and slightly more relatable. Both protagonists are treated like godly figures even though you might just like Charan more.Game Changer: Plot

The only reason why Game Changer scores better than Indian 2 is because of the stunning setpieces it offers. The finesse with Charan which he pulls off both roles also adds to the overall experience. Charan’s acting chops bring out the dichotomy between Nandan/Appanna rather well. The entry scenes are rather crafted. Karthik Subbaraj helms the narrative, creating a protagonist, Ram Nandan (Charan), who goes to great lengths to fulfill his father’s dream of a corruption-free country.

Game Changer: Performances

Nandan’s temperamental issues get the best of him, as his lover Deepika (played by Kiara Advani) urges him to pursue IAS as she tries to curb his anger. Anjali is Parvathy, Appanna’s wife who stands firmly by his morals and principles. Over the course of 2 hours 45 minutes, you might just spot many tropes and formulas that are not just done-to-death but almost outdated at this point. Novelty and subtlety are two words that are missing in Shankar’s vocabulary.

Game Changer: Writing And Direction

Much like Indian 2, Shankar follows his same old approach of making the film’s message blatantly obvious and completely non-subtle to the point that it feels like the anti-corruption sentiment is being hammered into your brain. The preachy, overly moralistic tone is tiresome at first, bothersome later. That a lot of the arcs in the film are laughably bad and overly predictable is painful. Much like Indian 2, Game Changer has a school skit-level commentary where it tries to squeeze in as many anti-corruption PSAs as possible. That none of these PSAs are impactful is another thing.

Game Changer: What Works, What Doesn’t

The antagonist is Bobbili Satyamurthy (played by Srikanth). Satyamurthy locks horns with Appanna. His cunning politician son Mopidevi (Suryah) clashes with Appanna’s son, Ram Nandan. The cross-generational feud between the politician and IAS/IPS officer plays out in between elections, MLA meetings and protests. At 2 hours 45 minutes, Game Changer is a slightly better version of Indian 2.

Star rating: 2 / 5 stars

Game Changer is now playing in theaters.