Film: Rajanna

 

Cast: Nagarjuna, Sneha, Baby Annie, Swetha Menon, Pradeep Rawat, Mukhesh Rishi, Ajay,Supreet, Nasser, Ravi Kale, and others.

 

Music: M.M. Keeravani

 

Cinematography: Shyam K.Naidu, Anil Bhandari and Poorna

 

Editing: Kotagiri Venkateshwara Rao

 

Action Sequences Director: S.S.Rajamouli

 

Producer: Nagarjuna

 

Story, Screen Play And Direction: V.Vijayendra Prasad

 

Banner: Annapurna Studios

 

Story: The story begins with Lakshmamma along with her infant child Mallamma (baby Annie) chased by Razakars, who are about to kill Lakshmamma. Predicting the threat of death of her baby, she leaves her in a boat in a river. Later Lakshmamma gets killed by Razakars and Mallamma is saved and brought up by Sambayya, an old man of the village, Nelakonda Palli. Mallamma attains the age of around 10 years and is interested in singing. This is irked by Dorasani (Swetha Menon) of that village. She makes a few attempts to kill Mallamma. But Mallamma gets escaped every time luckily. Later, Mallamma knows that her father is none other than Rajanna (Nagarjuna), the great patriot and the savior of her village from Razakars. Now, Mallamma decides to save her village from the clutches of Dorasani. To achieve her goal, she decides to go to Delhi to meet the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Can the poor little girl achieve her target? Watch it on the big screen.

 

Artists' performance: 

 

Nagarjuna: Nagarjuna's performance as a ferocious patriot is simply mind boggling. His dialogues before the Britishers and the other fight sequences are emotional, energetic and patriotic. Some years ago he acted in the film 'Azad', in which his role has patriotism partially. However, this is a full-fledged patriotic role for him. This role undoubtedly stands as one of the best in Nagarjuna's career and he is due to get many awards for this acting.

 

Others: Baby Annie played the key role in this movie. Entire story of the first one hour runs around her and Nagarjuna is not seen in that time. She had done a marvelous job. Her expressions in most of the scenes make us to feel pity on her. Many times your eyes may get filled with tears because of her acting skills and also because of the depth of the emotional quotient in the story. Sneha was seen as the wife of Nagarjuna. She was adequate. Swetha Menon, as a lady villain was apt. Others including Ajay, Pradeep Rawat, Mukhesh Rishi, Nasser etc. did their job well.

 

Technical department: 

 

Music: Music by M.M. Keeravani is melodious and content oriented. The background score and the songs make us to feel that this is the best music for the year, 2011. No doubt, Keeravani's music is the heart and soul of this film.

 

Story, Screen Play And Direction: The director was very clear at what he was going to picturize. Complete screen play might have registered in his mind prior to the start of the shoot. No one from the audience felt the absence of the hero for the one hour he was missing. When hero appears on the screen for the first time, the response from the audience is amazing. Rajamouli's mark was not only seen in the action sequences directed by him but also seen in the emotional part of the story. Can't we say Rajamouli might be the ghost director of this film? Influence of Rajamouli can be seen in every frame of this film. 

 

Sidelights: 

 

* The director was very keen at every scene of the story, for instance, the girl's age might be around 10 years and as per the story, it might be the year, 1957 or 58. When a radio was presented to the girl, she listened to the songs from the movie, 'Mayabazar', a 1957 movie. 

 

* As the story of the film was taken place from one of the villages from Telangana region, the director took necessary care in showing the traditions of the area like, Bathukamma festival, Telangana slang by the actors including hero, dances of toddy tappers etc.

 

* 'Rabandula Rajyamlo' and 'Amma Avanee' songs make us get wetness in our eyes for sure. Excellent picturization can be observed in both of the songs!

 

* In the beginning of the movie, we can listen to the voiceover of ANR for one minute. 

 

* The adrenaline pumping 'Sala sala kaage' song was very emotional and audience involved completely in the song.

* Magadheera's 100 killings scene inspired the razakars 200 killings scene by Nagarjuna and co.

* The death scene of Nagarjuna and his four comrades holding a national flag was impressive and well shot.

 

* No glamour show from the heroine and others was seen. Sneha was as beautiful as her previous movies.

 

Positives: 

 

* Superb music by Keeravani

 

* Emotional intensity of the story.

 

* Performances of Nagarjuna and Baby Annie

 

* Good screenplay and the direction

 

Negatives: 

 

* Hero's absence for the first one hour. (But most of the audience didn't feel this as a negative point because of story's domination)

* Lack of regular commercial elements like duets, regular stunts, comedy etc.(In fact, they are not necessary for this film)

 

Bottom-Line: This is one of the best patriotic and revolutionary films of recent times. Watch it for sure.

 

Rating: 3.5/5