Rukshar Dhillon Archives

March 15, 2025

by Carla Hay

Rukshar Dhillon and Kiran Abbavaram in “Dilruba” (Photo courtesy of Sivam Celluloids and Yoodlee Films)

“Dilruba” (2025)

Directed by Viswa Karun

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Mangalore City, India, the romantic comedy/actio film “Dilruba” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A former mechanical engineering student becomes a violent thug, as he gets caught up in a love triangle with his current love and his former childhood sweetheart.

Culture Audience: “Dilruba” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a time-wasting movie that doesn’t have much to say.

Kathy Davison in “Dilruba” (Photo courtesy of Sivam Celluloids and Yoodlee Films)

As a romantic comedy, “Dilruba” is dull, derivative, and definitely not worth your time. It has an unimaginative plot about a love triangle that is stretched out to irritating levels in this overly long film that has mediocre-to-bad acting. This poorly written, 153-minute movie stumbles from scene to scene with a weak narrative that gets repetitive because the plot is so thin.

Written and directed by Viswa Karun, “Dilruba” is told in non-chronological order, with flashbacks taking up a great deal of the movie. The tone is very uneven in how comedy, action, and song-and-dance numbers are clumsily placed throughout the film. “Dilruba” (which is a Telugu-language term of endearment for females) is very forgettable because this type of story has been in too many other movies to count.

“Dilurba” begins with a quick montage and mishmash of voiceovers taking place from 2022 to 2025 to explain what went wrong in the romance between two people who are now in their 20s: Siddharth “Siddhu” Reddy (played by Kiran Abbavaram) and his childhood sweetheart Maggie (played by Kathy Davison) grew up together in India. They broke up in 2024, because Maggie moved to the United States.

Maggie was the one who dumped Siddhu. The movie later reveals that there was another reason why Maggie broke up with Siddhu. It has to do with a business deal gone bad between the fathers of Siddhu and Maggie. This led to a tragedy in one of the families that has caused Siddhu to be angry and bitter. Ever since this tragedy, Siddhu refuses to say the words “sorry” and “thank you.”

In 2025, Siddhu isn’t completely over Maggie, who lives in New York City. He still calls her and sends her text messages, even though Maggie is now married to a man named Prakash, and she’s pregnant with their first child. Siddhu has a pregnant wife named Anjali (played by Rukshar Dhillon), who knows about Maggie. The movie has many flashbacks showing the up-and-down romance of Siddhu and Anjali.

After Siddhu was jilted by Maggie, he was abusing alcohol and was directionless in his life. He eventually decided to have a responsible life and became a mechanical engineering student at a local university in Mangalore City, India. Siddhu met his best friend Balaram Viraj (played Satya) at this university because they were in the same mechanical engineering class together.

Siddhu met Anjali at a pub frequented by sex workers who are under the control of a domineering pimp named Vicky. When Siddhu first saw Anjali, she was sitting next to Vicky but seemed fearful of him. She made eye contact with Siddhu and made a silent signal for help with her hands. And quicker than you can say “idiotic movie,” Siddhu has broken a beer bottle on Vicky’s head, and the two men get into a violent brawl in the bar. Siddhu wins this fight, but Vicky confronts Siddhu later to get revenge.

Siddhu is shocked to find out that Anjali is not only a student at the same university where he is, but she’s also the only female student in one of his mechanical engineering classes. Anjali seems to have gotten an instant crush on Siddhu because of how he “rescued” her from Vicky. This infatuation leads to several tedious and awkward scenes of Anjali aggressively pursuing and stalking Siddhu to try to get him to date her.

Siddhu eventually gets worn down by Anjali’s peskiness, and they end up dating. Anajli is quick to experess her feelings of love for Siddhu, but he still has unresolved feelings for Maggie. In the movie’s jumbled timeline, Maggie ends up becoming a visiting lecturer in one of Siddhu’s classes, as already revealed in the “Dilruba” trailer. Predictably, Anjali gets jealous.

“Dilruba” is nothing but scene after scene of Anjali and Siddhu having a relationship that turns hot and cold repeatedly. In addition to Siddhu still having feelings for Maggie, the other major source of conflict between Anjali and Siddhu is that Siddhu has a tendency to get into violent fights because of his bad temper. Anjali’s widowed father Mahadev Prasad (played by Aadukalam Naren) is a police inspector who’s skeptical that Siddhu can be a good match for Anjali. The scene where Siddhu meets Mahadev for the first time is one of the worst in the movie because of how badly written it is.

Much of “Dilruba” involves a silly subplot about Siddhu and a crime boss named Machi, nicnkamed Joker (played by John Vijay), which just drags out this annoying movie even more. The present-day scenes show mopey Siddhu still pining over pregnant Maggie, while pregnant Anjali worries about how Siddu’s lovesick feelings toward Maggie will affect Anjali’s marriage to Siddhu. It all becomes so tedious to watch after a while.

Siddhu doesn’t deserve much sympathy because the movie goes to great lengths to portray him as an underdog hero, when in reality he’s just a selfish jerk. Anjali apparently has a thing for bad boys because she gives Siddhu the nickname Villain. Anjali, who is just as insufferable as Siddhu, should’ve known what she was getting into with Siddhu when he rudely told her early on in their relationship: “Don’t be too smart. You’ll regret it if someone actually gobbles you up.”

“Dilruba” is supposed to be a romantic story, but it has a very problematic way of depicting male/female romances. Anjali repeatedly makes a fool of herself for Siddhu, who often treats her like garbage, and the movie promotes a fantasy that this abuse is supposed to be real love. In a movie filled with unimpressive acting, Dhillon gives the worst performance, as she overexaggerates Anjali’s ditsy actions and words. By the end of “Dilruba,” you won’t care who ends up with whom, as long as you don’t have to see these aggravating characters again.

Sivam Celluloids and Yoodlee Films released “Dilruba” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on March 14, 2025.

January 18, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Naa Saami Ranga”

Directed by Vijay Binni

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in India, in the late 1980s (and briefly in 1963), the action film “Naa Saami Ranga” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An orphan gets adopted by a powerful government family, and when he’s an adult, he becomes involved in the family’s power struggles.

Culture Audience: “Naa Saami Ranga” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching formulaic action movies with many unrealistic fight scenes.

Shabeer Kallarakkal and Rao Ramesh in “Naa Saami Ranga” (Photo courtesy of RKD Studios)

“Naa Saami Ranga” has more of the same predictable action-movie story about a hero character who’s caught up in violent feuding, revenge schemes, and a difficult romance. The generic and uninspiring plot becomes incoherent and annoying after a while. The awkwardly placed musical numbers are forgettable and formulaic.

Written and directed by Vijay Binni, “Naa Saami Ranga” is so derivative of many other similar movies, if you’ve seen enough of them, then you’ll know exactly how the movie is gong to end about 15 to 20 minutes after the movie starts. “Naa Saami Ranga” (which means “my goodness gracious” in Hindi) recycles the same old story of an underdog “hero,” who battles against enemies (usually those with more money and more power), while his love life consist mostly of chasing after a woman who seems to be unattainable.

The movie (which place in an unnamed village in India) begins in 1963, when an orphan named Kishtaiah, who’s about 12 to 13 years old, is invited to live with his best friend Anji (who’s about 10 or 11 years old) and Anji’s single mother. Kishtaiah and Anji are raised as brothers. The movie never bothers to explain what happened to Kishtaiah’s parents or anything about his family background.

One day, tragedy strikes when Anji’s mother suddenly dies. No cause of death is given n the movie. At the time of her death, she was heavily in mortgage debt to a wealthy businessman named Varadaraju (played by Rao Ramesh), who demands that Kishtaiah and Anji give the deceased mother’s house to him, in order to pay off the debt.

Instead of leaving these boys poor and orphaned, a powerful local government official named Peddayya (played by Nassar) volunteers to pay off the debt and raise Kishtaiah and Anji alongside his three other pre-teen sons. One of Peddayya’s sons is named Dasu, who shows the most resentment over having two new boys in the household. And you know what that means later in the story.

Kishtaiah meets Varamahalakshmi, nicknamed Varalu, the daughter of Varadaraju. It’s love at first sight, but Kishtaiah is too shy to approach her when he first sees her. He eventually starts talking to Varalu but is afraid to tell her how he really feels about her. Anji gives encourgagement to Kishtaiah, who gets enough confidence to tell Varalu his true feelings.

But on the day that Kishtaiah plans to do that, he sees his adoptive father Peddayya frantically driving a car that is being chased by a gang of about 20 thugs in a remote area. Peddayya is wounded. It just so happens that Kishtaiah has a gun with him, which he takes out an aims at the thugs.

“Naa Saami Ranga” then fast-fowards to 1988. The movie never shows what happened after Kishtaiah took out that gun, but it’s explained later that Kishtaiah shot the thugs and saved Peddayya’s life. In gratitude, Peddayya began to treat Kishtaiah (played by Nagarjuna) as equal to his biological sons. And you just know that this is going to cause major problems between Kishtaiah and Dasu (played by Shabeer Kallarakkal), who wants to be Peddayya’s favorite son.

During this time, Kishtaiah and Anji (played by Allari Naresh) are still best friends. Anji has fallen in love with a woman named Manga (played by Mirnaa Menon), and they get married. Kishtaiah and Anji are so close, Kishtaiah continues to live with Anji even after Anji gets married.

Kishtaiah now acts like a village protector against bullies, with a machete as a weapon of choice. No longer a shy teenager, Kishtaiah (who is a chainsmoker) walks around with a lot of swagger and arrogance. It’s more than enough to attract Varalu (played by Ashika Ranganath), who becomes charmed by Kishtaiah, and they fall in love with each other after she plays “hard to get.”

The relationshp between Kishtaiah and Varalu doesn’t go smoothly. Her father Varadaraju hasn’t forgotten about Kishtaiah’s poverty-striken childhood before Kishtaiah was adopted by Peddayya. Varadaraju doesn’t approve of Varalu dating Kishtaiah for caste reasons and because he thinks Kishtaiah deserves to be with someone who is more refined.

That’s not the only storyline about a father disapproving of a couple. There’s also a subplot about Kishtaiah and Anji befriending a guy named Bhaskar (played by Raj Tarun), who is dating a woman named Kumari (played by Rukshar Dhillon) whom Bhaskar wants to marry. However, Kumari’s father Veerabhadrudu (played by Madhusudan Rao), who is the president of a nearby village named Jagganna Thota, vehemently opposes the idea of Bhaskar marrying Kumari, because Veerabhadrudu doesn’t think Bhaskar is good enough to marry Kumari.

The rest of “Naa Saami Ranga” is about conflicts over these romance problems, which lead to family feuds and a lot of silly-looking fight scenes in a messy story. There is absolutely nothing creatively imaginative about “Naa Saami Ranga.” The acting is mediocre, and the dialogue is simplistic. It will be difficult for many viewers to emotionally connect with the adult Kishtaiah, because he comes across as very shallow and has a nasty temper, even though he is very loyal to his loved ones.

Because there’s a missing 25-year gap in the story, there’s no real explanation for the drastic personality change from the shy teenage Kishtaiah to the combative adult Kishtaiah. It’s implied that when he shot the thugs who were attacking Peddayya, this violent incident changed Kishtaiah. But there’s no real indication in the movie that this theory is true, because this entire movie is poorly written.

The action scenes are sloppy and very unrealistic. For example, in one of the major showdown scenes, a certain person is brutally stabbed, and then gets up and moves around as if that person has no injuries at all. The movie expects viewers to take this idiotic scene seriously. Ultimately, “Naa Saami Ranga” fails to bring suspense or an interesting story, which makes the movie’s 150-minute runtime feel much longer.

RKD Studios released “Naa Saami Ranga” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on January 14, 2024.

Tag: Rukshar Dhillon

Review: ‘Dilruba’ (2025), starring Kiran Abbavaram, Rukshar Dhillon, Kathy Davison and John Vijay

Review: ‘Naa Saami Ranga,’ starring Nagarjuna, Allari Naresh, Raj Tarun, Ashika Ranganath and Shabeer Kallarakkal