In the last two years, two opposing forces have shone brightly in the landscape of Indian cinema. The unprecedented international success of director SS Rajamouli’s “Rrr” (2022) has catapulted its lead actors into a level of worldwide fame previously reserved for the likes of Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. International audiences took particular appreciation of Ram Charan, whose morally conflicted and complex character won widespread admiration. Yet, this excitement is tempered by the fact that Ram Charan has a relatively meager filmography, and of these, there are only a small number of phenomenal films, such as “Magadheera” (2009) or “Rangasthalam” (2018), a couple of good-to-decent films such as “Yevadu” (2014) or “Dhruva” (2016), and several outright stinkers like “Rachcha” (2012), the remake of Bachchan’s “Zanjeer” (2013), or the infamous “Vinaya Vidheya Rama” (2019).

Perhaps his biggest flop, 2022’s “Acharya”, was technically an extended cameo role and mercifully came and went before international audiences had fully latched onto “Rrr”. Despite this,...