Review of Rajakumarudu Telugu movie

STORY:

Directed by K. Raghavendra Rao Starring Preity Zinta Mahesh Babu Release date(s) 28 June 1999 Country India Language Telugu

Story Line

Raja meets Rani in Khandala and they fall in love with each other. Then they come to Rangapuram and fight their family differences out to get married to each other.

Review

A girl is dragging a treasure box in a hilly area only to get caught by a villain gang that is armed with a captor, a jeep, a couple of horses and of course guns. As that gal is screaming for help, our hero makes his entrance in a grand scale appearing in Zorro attire. After a few fights and stunts like riding standing( a la ajay devagan) on a couple of bikes that are self operated, you start thinking why so much hungamma is happening about Hero introduction. Suddenly the gal's box burst and the 'Pepsi' bottles pop out. Hero sips Pepsi chivalrously! Yehi hai right choice baby!! Yup! Its an ad shooting for 'Pepsi'. Raj Kumar (Mahesh) is doing modeling along with his graduation at Bombay. After seeing the ad shooting Bombay ad producers queues up for him. And then Raj Kumar chooses to sing 'Bollywood BalaRajuni'. After the intro song Raj Kumar go to his uncle's Hotel in Khandala for the vacation along with his friends. Raj Kumar and his uncle start talking with swords. During their conversation, we realize that Raj Kumar and his uncle, Dhanunjay (Prakash Raj) are like close buddies. Raj Kumar has no parents and Dhanunjay has no other relatives. Then they show a bus coming to that hotel with a banner of 'Kothi Women College, Hyderabad' on it. You guessed it right! Rani (Priety Zinta) is the last one to get down from the bus, as we eagerly wait for the introduction of the heroine. Raj Kumar falls in love with Rani at first sight. Raj Kumar starts unabashedly teasing Rani and causes hatred in her. At the same time, Raj Kumar appears in a cowboy dress on a hill area with a horse, whip and sword and plays his guitar and do some feats to attract Rani. Rani drops her pallu which will fly and fall in the hands of Raj Kumar. Rani starts loving that cowboy. Again you are right. Rani does not know that the cowboy is Raj Kumar himself. As we start wondering how long Rajkumar does his double play with Rani, a team of cops consisting of Brahmanandam, MS Narayana and Asrani come to Khandala to catch a guy who did 10 rapes. Enter the cops .. the age old comedy of constable teasing SI begins ( a la 420, JVAS, Hello Brother ... ). The rapist, whom these cops are searching, kidnaps Rani right under the nose of Brahmanandam. Begins the chase. Rapist and Rani in a maruti van, Cops on a typical Andhra police jeep and Rajkumar on a bike. Some how rapist fools Cops, but not Rajkumar. As the rapist got the steering out of his hand. Van starts running like a wild horse dumping rapist and Rani out of it and then jumping into a deep valley of Khandala. *Cut* Rani is hanging to the cliff and rapist holding her wrist ( a la pawan kalyan and kirthi in toli prema). Rani relents as rapist asks her to choose between 'mancham ekkadam' and 'paade ekkadam' ( dialogues by Paruchuri). Meantime our Raj Kumar stops his bike and changes his attire to cowboy though his Rani is fighting out with rapist and doing cliff hanging. When Rani is on the verge of falling from the cliff, our cowboy enters there scene to rescue her and he also takes precaution not to show his face to her. Rani is thrilled to see his cowboy flame thrashing the rapist in different styles. After the fight is over, Raj Kumar shows mercy on Rani by closing the curtains down by revealing his identity. Raja and Rani confirm their love duly followed by a song. During that evening while doing sword talking with Dhanunjay, Raja reveals his love for Rani. Suddenly Dhanunjay gets disappointed and tells Raja not to love any gal, as he has somebody in his mind. Dhanunjay puts some sentimental dialogues to make Raj Kumar reject Rani. A tear some Rani verbally thrashes Dhanunjay before boarding her bus back to 'Kothi College'. *Interval* Raj Kumar and Dhanunjay boards train to AP. Prakash Raj starts telling the flashback. There is a feudal system in Rangapuram. Thyagamurthy (Krishna) is a landlord of 60 acres. So is the Sarvarayudu (Jaya Prakash). Being a kind hearted person Thyagamurthy donates all his land to the farmers who are working for him. Dhanunjay's sister is married to Thyagamurthy. Dhanunjay is married to the Sumalatha, sister of Sarvarayudu. Thyagamurty is making all farmers enlightened about the exploitation by Sarvarayudu. As Sarvarayudu does not like his farmers to know about his exploitation kills Thyagamurthy and his wife. Dhanunjay picks the kid (Raj Kumar) of Thyagamurthy and takes him back to his house (residence of Sarvarayudu). Sarvarayudu rejects to accommodate son of Thyagamurthy in his house. An infuriated Dhanunjay decides to leave that house and stay on his own. Sumalatha refuses to join his hubby and she prefers to stay with her brothers ( Sarvarayudu and Bro.). Being an insulted man, Dhanunjay challenges that he will get Raj Kumar married to his daughter (who is with Sumalatha now), leaves for Khandala along with Raj Kumar to become a grand hotelier. By the time flash back is over Raj Kumar and Dhanunjay are full of tears. Raj Kumar promises Dhanunjay that he will marry his sis-in-law and duly drops the pallu presented by Rani through the window of train (It will fly and get stuck to a red signal light, that's different matter). Enter Rangapuram. Raj Kumar and Dhanunjay wants to see Sumalatha. They know that Sarvarayudu family is visiting temple that evening. Dhanunjay and Raj Kumar visit temple to see Sumalatha and her daughter. This time too you shot the bull's eye. The daughter of Sumalatha is none but Rani. These guys make sure that they are not seen by those women. Kids in Sarvarayudu family are watching 'Shaktiman' in the TV. Sumalatha forces to put the TV off. And one of the kid start telling that 'Shaktiman' will come now. Raj Kumar appears in Zorro dress. He fools around with all the family members by running around with a sword and then slips in Rani's bed room. After much dilly dallying they reach basement. Raj Kumar and Rani starts fighting with swords and Raj starts kissing her in between the fights and finally manages to disrobe her with a few quick movements by his sword (Remember the Mask of Zorro). Then he reveals his identity to brighten the redden face of Rani. Raj Kumar, Rani and Dhanunjay meet at a place. Rani reveals that she got engaged to SriHari and her marriage is in offing. Srihari wins 'KarraSaamu' contest. After a few minutes Raj Kumar enters the scene to fool around with SriHari ( a la bavagaru bagunnara). Raj Kumar and Dhanunjay shows a photograph of Rani with Raj (Raj's face is blackened) and convinces Raj Kumar that Rani character might not be good. Then SriHari agrees to make Raj Kumar enter as a London friend of him at Rani's house ( a la DDLJ). Now the stage is set for the climax. How does Raj Kumar gets Rani from the clutches of Sarvarayudu? How does Sumalatha realizes the importance of her hubby Dhanunjay? Will Survarayudu tolerate the cheating of Raj Kumar? Well, guys, you gotta watch it on the silver screen!!

Performance

Actors: Mahesh Babu: This charming prince made his debut as a full fledged hero in this film. He looks very handsome. His acting is very good. He did his role with ease. His dances are a treat to watch. So are the fights. He looks pretty tender too. Krishna: He is surprise pack of this movie. He acted with fire in his small guest role, which includes a red song. Priety Zinta: She is looking as pretty as ever. She is in her elements in this film. Her acting is very natural. Her expressions are very cute. Prakash Raj: He did this role with ease. Jaya Prakash: He did well with in the limitations of his character. Sumalatha: Sumalatha did her bit in a role that has negative shades. She did act well. Story: Story is very week and thin. Direction and Screenplay: The most uncharacteristic direction by Raghavendra Rao. He tried to do too many things, which resulted in entropy. He failed to maintain the tempo in the movie. Screenplay is shabby except for a few scenes. Photography: Camera work by Vincent is a plus point of the movie. He captured the beauty of Newzealand and in a new dimension. Music: Music by Mani Sharma is a big plus for this film. Dialogues: Paruchuri dialogues for the first half are not up to the mark as it was a love story. But in the second half dialogues were enjoyable as it involves family drama. Production: C Aswini did no compromises to produce a lavishly spent movie. You can see the richness in every frame.

Songs

1. Bollywood Balarajuni: This is the song with Mink Singh with all Raghavendra Rao kind of masala features. Superb dances by Mahesh babu. 2. Godari Gattu Paina: This song is one more foot tapper with a great dance by Mahesh and Priety and it is shot in Newzealand. 3. Eppudeppudu valapu Chappudu: Shot in Newzealand. A classic song with decent and variety steps. 4. Enduki Prayamu: One more slow classic song 5. Rama sakkanodamma: This song is the highlight of the film. Though all songs got good applause, this song got raving applause. This is the only song in this movie that was fitted in the interesting part of the story. Nice to see Mahesh and Preity dance folk steps in Newzealand and they out do each other in that dance. 6. Indrudo Chandrudo: This is one more mass song. Very good dances by Mahesh. In the first lyric of this song Priety is wearing a lambadi dress. She looks very sensuous.

Analysis

This movie has taken more than an year to make. Script was finalized 4 months after starting the project. Director and producer are at fault for not starting this movie after script is finalized. In that process director has to make lots of compromises and make a half-baked film. The viewer feels clue less. First half of the movie is boring. Second half is good except for the last 30 minutes. The story of this movie starts just before the interval. There are some excellent scenes in the second half that will make us realize how good is Mahesh at comedy. He is got perfect timing. He will the force to reckon with in the future. Story is very thin. Treatment is very bad. Plus points of this movie are Mahesh, Preity, Photography and Songs. We have to wait and see the box office performance in the weeks to come.