Khiladi (2022 film)
Khiladi () is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film written and directed by Ramesh Varma who co-produced it with Satyanarayana Koneru under A Studios. The film stars Ravi Teja, Arjun Sarja, Unni Mukundan, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Dimple Hayathi, Thakur Anoop Singh, Sachin Khedekar and Nikitin Dheer in pivotal roles. Initially scheduled to be released on 28 May 2021, it was indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Soundtrack and score of the film is composed by Devi Sri Prasad. Released theatrically along with a Hindi dubbed version on 11 February 2022, the film received mixed to negative reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office. Plot 
Bala Singham is a crime boss who sends a container of  to India to bribe the MLAs to place his father, Guru Singham as the next CM. Pooja is a criminologist who learns about Mohan Gandhi as a part of her research, who was convicted of killing his whole family, except for his daughter. She meets him in the prison, but he refuses to talk to her. While seeing him and his daughter's bond, she promises to help him get bail if he narrates his story, to which Gandhi agrees. Flashback: Gandhi is an orphan, who is raised by a successful businessman, Rajashekhar and became the General Manager of the company. He lives a happy life with his wife Chitra and their daughter. CBI officer Arjun arrests Rajashekhar in a money laundering case linked with the same  orchestrated by Bala Singam. Guru Singham places two choices for Gandhi: finding the money or letting his family get killed. Gandhi confronts Rajashekhar and learns that Rajashekhar did this to return the favour to Guru Singam, who helped him during his days. Gandhi secretly meets Rajasekhar and decodes the location of the money. After confirming the same, Gandhi first informs the Home Minister, who informs the same to David (who also wants a share of the money). The Home Minister orders to kill Rajashekhar inside the custody and transports the money. David robs the money, replaces it with fake currency midway, and burns down the container. Arjun finds a note and is proven fake after forensic analysis. David, who was constantly instructed over the phone via an unknown person, kills Gandhi's family except his daughter, but the latter takes the blame to save his daughter. Present: Pooja arranges a bail using her father's name, DGP Jayaram, to perform final rites to his father-in-law. After learning this, Arjun and Jayaram try to stop him, but Gandhi escapes. Pooja, to her shock, finds that Gandhi's supposedly dead family members are alive and are a part of his crew, where it is revealed that Gandhi is a Dubai-based con artist whose sole aim is to fool everyone and rob the money. Arjun was sent to arrest him in Dubai. Flashback: One day, Gandhi learns about the  and planned to steal them, where he hires a  club dancer named Aditi (Chitra), whom Bala Singham intends to date and with the help of his gang and Aditi, Gandhi hacks Bala Singham's phone where the location of the money is stored. When Gandhi is about to acquire the money, Arjun arrests him, but he was shot. Arjun passes the information to the government and is posted to the CBI. Suddenly, Gandhi arrives and surrenders himself where he takes the blame for the crimes he did not committed and was given 14 years of rigorous imprisonment. In the prison, he befriended Ramakrishna, whose story was the one which Gandhi narrated to Pooja and used her to get himself released from prison. He also planned to forge the documents so that Pooja would believe what he was telling was true. Present: Arjun deduces a plan where they could catch David and Gandhi. Outside the court, Gandhi captures David after a shootout,  while Singham's men captured Ramakrishna. While confronted, a badly heated David reveals that he did all this based on the instructions of an unknown person who is actually Jayaram. Pooja doesn't believe this, but she finds that all the cash is cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, Singham was about to kill Ramakrishna after denying having any knowledge of the money. However, in the nick of time, Pooja calls Singham and strikes a deal to tell him about the location and lets Ramakrishna leave. During a shootout, Aditi betrays Gandhi and shoots him for the money. While hospitalized, Pooja learns from Gandhi's henchmen that Gandhi was after the money to make a charitable trust for needy people. Pooja tells that she lied to them and her father had all the money in the hard cash. Singham and his men arrives at the location and kills Jayaram's men, but Gandhi arrives and kills all of Singham's henchmen and Singham. When Gandhi is about to take the money, he suddenly has a change of heart, and frees Ramakrishna, who finally meets his daughter. After a showdown with Arjun, he sees Gandhi as a changed person and lets him scott free. Later, Guru Singham is stripped of his ministerial post as the money he used to bribe the MLAs were bogus. It is revealed that Gandhi stole the real money and fooled Singham and everyone all along. At the same time, he was conversing with Arjun on the phone. Gandhi reveals that he is neither against him nor Singham and Jayaram, but was fighting against the corrupted system's responsibility towards people and wishes good luck to Arjun, who vows to arrest him again. 