Film: Ragada
Rating: 3/5
Banner: Sri Kamakshi Enterprises
Cast: Nagarjuna, Anushka, Priyamani, Brahmanandam, Pradeep Rawath,
Kota, Dev Gill, Dharmavarapu, Raghu Babu, Tanikella, Supreeth,
Sreelatha, Sana, Master Bharat, Charmee (spl appearance)
Music: Thaman
Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh
Cinematography: Sarvesh Murari
Story, screenplay, dialogues, direction: Veeru Potla
Producer: D Sivaprasad Reddy
Release date: 24/12/2010

Nagarjuna has been trying hard to score a hit since ‘Mass’ and now he arrived with another commercial treat. This is the last of the biggies for 2010.

Story:
Set on the backdrop of Hyderabad, the story begins with GK (Dev Gill) who is keen on taking power from Peddanna (Pradeep Rawath) and waits for the right chance. He finds a possibility with the arrival of Satya (Nagarjuna) who is brave, strong and intelligent. Satya wins GK’s confidence and in this process, even GK’s love interest Sirisha (Anushka) also falls for Satya. Meanwhile, Satya gives asylum to Ashtalakshmi (Priyamani) who has few issues.

However, no one knows who Satya is, from where he came and why he came. All this forms the rest of the story.

Performances:
Nagarjuna looks smashing as ever and he has shouldered the film very well. His looks are outstanding and as usual, he rocks with his screen presence.

Anushka has filled the glamour quotient with her voluptuous appeal and she will be a visual treat to the masses. Performance wise, she did her bit as required.

Priyamani was effective and though she cannot match Anushka in terms of looks or glamour, she made her presence felt in her own way.

Brahmanandam takes off in an interesting manner and gives few laughs. However, his role becomes weak during the second half.

The bunch of villains like Kota, Pradeep Rawath, Dev Gill, Supreeth, Shravan didn’t have much except screaming their lungs out and taking the bashings from the hero. There is no strength in their characterization.

Charmee looks sizzling hot and her moves are sensuous.

Dharmavarapu, Master Bharat were brief and brought few smiles, Sana was standard, Sreelatha was okay, Satya Prakash was standard, the rest did their bit upto the mark.

Analysis:
Overall, the film runs on pure formula of few fights, glamorous songs, a comedy track and one sentimental attachment to the plot.

Primarily, the makers tried to cash in on the star power of Nagarjuna and he has not let them down. While the dialogues at few places were effective, the screenplay was having few hiccups.

Though there were few unexpected twists in the second half, the director was not able to give it that punch. Developing the comedy track would have helped. However, this is a film for Nag fans, B and C centers. The content is weak but it is the presentation which was packed with the right ingredients for a mass masala entertainer.

Bottomline: Pure commercial formula entertainer

Film: Nagavalli
Rating: 3.25/5Banner: Sri Sai Ganesh Productions Pvt Ltd
Cast: Venkatesh, Anushka, Richa, Kamalini, Shraddha Das, Poonam Kaur, Brahmi, Dharmavarapu, Sarath Babu, Prabha, Raksha, Avinash, Suja, M S Narayana, Sameer etc
Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers
Music: Guru Kiran
Editing: Marthand K Venkatesh
Cinematography: Sam K Naidu
Screenplay, Direction: P Vasu
Producer: Bellamkonda Suresh
Release date: 16/12/2010

Venkatesh played enough of family man roles in soft humor treatment till now. After a long gap he tried something different. He came up with remake film ‘Nagavalli’ packed with huge technical elements. Let us see how the movie faired in first impression.

Story:
Ever since the portrait of Chandramukhi (Anushka) comes to a big house, strange things begin to happen to the owners (Sarath Babu, Prabha) and their family comprising of four daughters.

They suspect the presence of a large snake and things get more complicated with the death of a snake charmer (M S).

Then, the family approaches Ramachandra Siddanthi (Avinash) and he tells them that all this is happening due to the presence of Chandramukhi in their house. He suspects one of the daughters is possessed by Chandramukhi and decides that only one man can resolve this.

He is Dr Vijay (Venkatesh) and as soon as he arrives, he starts doing his investigations. What happens to his enquiries? Who is Chandramukhi? Who is Nagavalli? What exactly is happening in that home? All this forms the rest of the story.

Performances:
Venkatesh rocked with this film in double role. He is good in the shoes of a psychologist as well as in the clad of Maharaja Naga Bhairava. This is the first time Venkatesh played negative role as Naga Bhairava. His debut as villain is marvelous.

Anushka is good as perfectly suited the role in dancer costume. At times, we even recall her most famous role in eth film ‘Arundhati’.

Shradhdha Das is sharp and arrogant. Her mystic performance impresses the audience and she becomes a hook in narration.

Kamalini sucks. Her lean patient-like look is not so impressive in dancer costume. But that suited well for the kind of role she played.

Richa is beautiful and she performed as required. She gets recognition with her role in this film.

Poonam Kour’s role is very short but she made her presence felt with her glamour.

Kannada actress Suja, who appeared in Apta Rakshaka, also appeared here. Her role is also small and not to do much with the main story line.

Sharat Babu and Prabha are ok in their character roles. Brahmanandam’s presence brought only couple of laughs and he was not utilized properly. Dharmavarapu and Raksha are ok.

The best part in the movie is Art Department and Graphics. That has done a fantastic job. Music and background score also functioned very well keeping the adrenaline of the audience on a high through out.

Director P Vasu did well on a whole except Venkatesh’s (with old look) part in 2nd half. 130 year old man doing stunts and dancing in the dilapidated fort on the hill are silly.

Highlights:

Analysis:The movie started with slow pace but picked up at the interval. When the music was released, the songs got average response on a whole. But here in the movie they were canned very impressively. Especially King Song and Kabaddi and Vandanalu songs rock in movie.

First half of the movie is ok and second half movie is good. If you like Chandramukhi movie you may surely like this movie.

Venkatesh needs high commendations for his spellbinding performance in the role of Maharaja Naga Bhairava. He apparently proved that he is on par with Mohan Babu in portraying villainy. He stands as right example for all big heroes who can certainly prove their mettle as real actors. He also shows an alternative way for established heroes to try some villainy and break monotony.

The story line of Chandramukhi that is well known for almost all the Telugu audience continues with ‘Nagavalli’. It’s a perfect sequel that way. It’s more thrilling and suspense filled. Although the treatment resembles something on the lines of Krishna’s old film ‘Ave Kallu’, this proves to be interesting and gripping till the end.

If old Venkatesh’s stunt scenes and dancing bits are trimmed, there wouldn’t be any drop in emotional graph from start to end.

Bottom-Line: Watch it
 

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey (U/A)
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sikandar Kher
Rating: ***

Think of all the things you expect from a Hindi film about India’s freedom struggle. Songs about love for the motherland are a given, dialogues that speak of revolution a must, there will usually be a bunch of very bad firang actors cast as Britishers who will speak anglicised Hindi and at least one character will lay down his life to protect his friends’.

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey (KHJJS) has all of the above ingredients that have usually resulted in films that are slightly over-the-top, even jingoistic, but which serve a purpose – that of giving you the thrill of watching the lives and stories of those who fought for the freedom we enjoy today.

But director Ashutosh Gowariker, in his trademark fashion, keeps the hyperbole minimal and opts for a simpler treatment, and focusses primarily on narrating a story.

Thankfully, in KHJJS, the story is what makes it watchable. Firstly, few of us may know of Surjya Sen – the protagonist – like we are aware of, say, Netaji Bose or Bhagat Singh or Mangal Pandey or even Rani Laxmibai.

History textbooks, to my knowledge, rarely made mention of the Chittagong Uprising, about a group of teenagers that attacked British forces in five different places on one night under the leadership of their schoolteacher Sen, lovingly known as Masterda, in the year 1930.

KHJJS borrows its story from the events narrated in Manini Chatterjee’s novel, Do And Die: The Chittagong Uprising 1930-34.

Sen (Bachchan) is fighting the freedom struggle along with his associates Nirmal (Kher), Anant, Kalpana (Padukone) and a few more. However, with most of his other saathi in jail, he turns to a group of teenagers who want to do their bit against the British Empire.

Impressed with their gumption and desire to free India, Sen trains the teenagers – who keep growing in numbers – in combat and weaponry. With help from his revolutionary friends, Sen plans an attack on five locations that are of importance to the Empire on one single night.

The film chronicles the preparation that went into the execution of the attacks and the aftermath.

All the things that make KHJJS different from other films of the same genre go against it too. For one, Gowariker takes his own sweet time to narrate the story.

Even though the film is Gowariker’s shortest, at close to three hours, it’s still quite long to make you shift in your seat more than once. Also, the film seems to lack the fervour you expect from a film with a patriotic theme.

Having said that, the strong points of the film is the novel storyline – that of kids fighting for independence – and the performances of most actors, especially the children.

Also, Gowariker manages to recreate the era well (with art director Nitin Chandrakant Desai), and draws you in the plot slowly and steadily.

While the pre-interval portions are enjoyable because of the camaraderie between the kids, the film shifts into action mode immediately after half-time. The attacks and the planning that went into them have been depicted well. Also, some penultimate scenes are sure to move even the stone-hearted.

However, the film drags at a number of places, and takes a little too long to wrap up. Also, Sen’s romance with Kalpana Dutta looks forced and takes a great deal away from the central plot. In fact, Sen makes a mention of his wife who he says died due to his mistakes, but you don’t really know what actually happened. Lame attempts at establishing a ‘Bengali’ set-up, with characters calling others’ with a pronounced ‘O’ in their names (like Kolpona), jar.

Performance-wise, Abhishek does quite well in the central role, but somewhere falls short of delivering the kind of performance you expect from the lead actor of a film like that. Deepika is confident, and doesn’t have much to do, something you won’t really complain about.

Sikander Kher and the actors playing Sen’s other associates pitch in good performances. Special mention, though, has to be made of Vijay Maurya, who like in many of his earlier roles, excels in this one too.

The film’s biggest plus, though, is the performance of the kids. Each and every one of them enthuses life in characters, creating an immediate connect. You smile when they are happy and feel the anguish when they experience it.

After having seen the words ‘Vande Mataram’ uttered in almost every film set in pre-independence India, watch the kids discuss its meaning. It’s among the scenes that make a strong impact. Wish there were more.