Dheeren’s the newest cop in Kannada cinema: 5 remarkable police stories to watch on OTT

Every Kannada hero worth his salt would have played a cop at some point in his career, like, for instance, Ambareesh in Antha , Shankar Nag in Sangliyana, Prabhakar in Tiger, Dr Rajkumar in Shabdavedi, P Saikumar in Police Story, Devaraj in Lock Up Death , and so on and so forth.

Actor Dheeren, the grandson of matinee idol Dr Rajkumar is the latest to join this long list. He plays a police officer in his sophomore film, Pabbar, directed by Shakhahaari fame Sandeep Sunkad, and produced by his uncle, Century Star Shivarajkumar, who has memorable cop roles in films like Inspector Vikram , Rustum, Killing Veerappan , Tagaru and many more to his credit.

Antha  

One of Rebel Star Ambareesh’s most memorable roles came in the Rajendra Singh Babu directorial, in which he played double roles – as an honest cop and a dreaded gangster. No prizes for guessing which one became the bigger hit. The plot of Antha revolves around Inspector Sushil Kumar (Ambareesh) who goes on to impersonate his lookalike, Kanwar Lal (also Ambareesh) a dreaded criminal, to expose the nexus between the underworld and the establishment.

Inspector Vikram 

Century Star Shivarajkumar’s filmography has him on the other side of the law more often, as the machete-wielding gangster, but every now and then, he does cop roles too, like Rustum and Tagaru, apart from Inspector Vikram, which is one of the most popular ones. In fact, Shivarajkumar is committed to doing a sequel to Inspector Vikram. Dinesh Baboo’s film is Kannada cinema’s first cop comedy.

Ranavikrama 

Pavan Wadeyar got Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar as ACP Vikram in the action thriller that had the actor in double roles. The film brought Adah Sharma and Anjali to Kannada cinema and followed two narratives, one set in modern day about the investigation into a missing reporter and another in the late 40s, when the British were leaving the country, but still up to no good. Puneeth played cop in Power as well.

Kempe Gowda 

Kiccha Sudeep has multiple memorable cop roles, like, for instance, Kempe Gowda, ACP Tirupati in Tirupati, ACP Ajay Kumar in Hubballi, Veera Madakari, Vikrant Rona and, more recently, Arjun Mahakshay in Max . Kempe Gowda is the Kannada remake of the Tamil hit Singam and paired Sudeep with Ragini Dwivedi.

Ragini IPS 

While Malashree is credited with the most cop roles for an actress, with films like Lady Commissioner, Kannadada Kiran Bedi, among many others, Ragini Dwivedi stepped into the territory with Ragini IPS, directed by Anand P Raju. In the film, she was ASP Ragini, a strict officer working to clean up society and get rid off goons and corrupt politicians, which comes at a great personal cost.