Bhadradri - Review

Several films had earlier hit the Telugu screen with village hit by pollution and the hero's family work for a solution to it. Once again debutant director Mallikarjun came out with one subject. However, the director tried his best to run the subject in a different way. Srihari, who is hitherto, had no big hit in the recent past, can heave a sigh of relief with this above average movie. Though Raja and Baladitya also played roles in the film, the audiences could not feel their presence much and the director tried his best to boost the image of Srihari alone. Once again Srihari appeared in a powerful role and he excelled in portraying different emotions on the screen.

Bhadradri is a village near Amalapuram. The village turns almost a burial ground due to a gas blow out from the ONGC gas. Krishnamurthy (Ranganath) is a fatherly figure of the village and he donates all his land in the nearby mandals to the poor farmers, whose lands turn barren due to the gas blow out. Raghuram (Srihari) and Chandu (Baladitya) are his sons. Their family is ready to sacrifice anything including their lives for the sake of the village. Suddenly, some children die of some mysterious disease. Krishnamurthy goes to the Health Minister (Jayaprakash Reddy) and pleads him to send a doctors' team and resorts to self-immolation as part of sacrifice for the village. The health minister, at this sudden development, orders inquiry and finds that the children have dead due to the medicines supplied by GenNext, a pharma company owned by Shankar Narayan (Mukhesh Rushi). In fact, the pharma company gives some medicines, which are supposed to be tested on plants and animals before being issued to people, which give a negative reaction and the kids die of that medicines. The people in the entire village consume those medicines and their lives are in danger, as the medicines show immediate reaction on children and are expected to work slowly on elders. As per Krishnamurthy's wish, Raghuram sends Chandu to pursue medicine course and he finds that the kids died of medicines and the lives of people are also in danger due to their impact. Learning this, Shankar Narayan, the health minister and some senior doctors, who get kickbacks from the industrialist, kill Chandu. Raghuram decides to teach a lesson to all those, who are responsible for the deaths of his father and brother. Siddhu (Raja), another medical student and friend of Chandu assists Raghuram in taking revenge. In the process, Siddhu traps Anu (Nikhita) the daughter of the health minister and forces him to come to a spot. Raghuram and Siddhu act tactfully and enacts a drama that the health minister is killed in a bomb blast. But in fact, they kidnap him and use his signature to seize the factories of Shankar Narayan and force him to return from the US to India. How Raghuram teach a lesson to the industrialist, health minister and corrupt doctors form part of the climax.

PLUS: It is Srihari, who has taken the entire responsibility to make the film watchable. He looks tremendous in action scenes and has really worked very hard in those scenes. Moreover, his body language, expressions in sentiment scenes are also worth watching. Raja, for the first time, has played an action hero, by shedding the lover boy image. He has appeared differently in the film with a different hairdo. The director has portrayed his character in a different way to all his films in his career so far. Especially, his dance performance in the introduction song is superb. Mallikarjun has also made a different experiment by running a comedy track with the heroine in the beginning to push her into the heroine's role after two to three scenes. Moreover, he has used the character to reveal the truth, which the hero could not, in the climax. Nikhita's role is also limited to shaking legs with the Raja for a couple of songs.

MINUS: The major minus point in the film is the running of film in a confusing manner in the first half. Though it is necessary to maintain some suspense, the audiences are completely grope in the dark as to what is happening and why the killings are taking place. The director should have established the role of Ranganath a little more rather than narrating in a song. Brahmanandam's character is unnecessary and after entering the Guinness Book and getting a doctorate, he should act in a more responsible way instead of accepting every role that comes in his way. Mukhesh Rushi's character is also not properly established in the film. Dialogues by Swamiji-Vijay are good in parts. Manisharma's tunes are just okay with a good mix of melody and fast beat. However, some tunes appear little old-fashioned.

REMARKS: Use of graphics to show how the explosion wipes out the lives of the villagers are good to watch with the people turning skeletons in flames. Thread work has been used extensively in almost all the action scenes. Though they enthuse the front benchers and mass audiences, the fights look more cinematic because of it. Gauthamraju should have resorted some more tight editing. Comedy track with Venumadhav has failed to evoke any laughter from the audiences. Giving an injection with the blood samples of various people would be very dangerous, but the director has not taken this issue seriously. Production values of Nandi Productions are okay.

Cast: Srihari, Raja, Baladitya, Gajala, Nikhita, Mukhesh Rushi, Jayaprakash Reddy, Ranganath, Brahmaji, Venumadhav, MS Narayana, Kadambari Kiran, Srinivasa Reddy, Prabhakar, Benarjee, Jeeva, LB Sriram, Prabhu, Sivaparvathi, Sairabanu, Geeta Singh and others

Credits: Story – KS Ravindranath (Bobby), Dialogues – Swamiji-Vijay, Camera – Bharani K Dharan, Action – Ram-Lakshman, Editing – Gauthamraju, Music – Manisharma, Presents – Malkapuram Eswaraiah, Malkapuram Sivamma, Producer – M Sivakumar, Screenplay and direction – A Mallikarjun.

Banner: Nandi Productions

Released on: March 6, 2008