Khaleja – Movie Review

After taking three long years and raking lots of controversy, Mahesh Babu"s Khaleja finally hit the screen. However, the film appeared not so impressive despite Trivikram"s efforts to portray Mahesh Babu in a different manner. The storyline is very delicate and the screenplay is zigzag, which ultimately made the film a damp squib.

Story:
Raju (Mahesh Babu) is a taxi driver. Whenever he meets Subhashini aka Subbu (Anushka) suffers huge loss. After one such encounter, Raju gets hospitalised. After his return from hospital, he takes two persons in his taxi to some place and one among them is a geologist. But geologist forgets his wallet in taxi. Raju goes inside to return and gets shocked when some one shoots the geologist. His assistant in a bid to escape jumps from the window and destroys his taxi. Later cirmustance leads Raju to visit Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, Subbu"s father looks for an alliance and finalises the match with the son (Amit) of GK (Prakash Raj), who is a billionaire as they both wanted to join hands in business. After finding some condoms with him, Subbu runs away from him, when he takes Subbu to Rajasthan in a helicopter. There again, Subbu meets Raju. When they wanted to return, GK"s men attack Raju and stab him. However, some villagers, who where suffering from a typical disease due to water contamination and finds Raju as a a saviour. Some coincidences prove that he had the divine powers. How Raju cracked the mystery behind the water contamination? Why GK wanted to contaminate the water and eliminate people from the village? How Raju taught a lesson to GK forms part of the climax.

Performance:
Mahesh Babu"s performance is the sole attraction of the film. He shouldered the entire responsibility to run the movie on his own. He changed the style of dialogue delivery and maintained good comedy timing. He has given a stylish touch to the action scenes and romantic scenes. Anushka is okay as heroine and her character has no scope for performance and she has filled the glamour slot by shaking her legs with the hero. Shafi has given an good performance in the film and has all the chances to bag best supporting actor award. Prakash Raj"s role is very limited and in fact, there is no need for such a big artiste for the villain"s role as the antagonist appeared only in a few scenes in the entire film. Other artistes including Rao Ramesh, Tanikella Bharani and Subbaraju have done justice to their roles and Veda appeared in only one scene. Comedy by Suni, Ali is okay but Brahmanandam is wasted.

Technical:
Dialogues are terrific and most of them are in colloquial language. They appear as if someone is talking casually. Mahesh Babu"s character has got a comedy touch due to the different kind of dialogues. Definitely it would attract the mass audiences. Trivikram has experimented a different screenplay because the story is quite delicate. Music by Manisharma is good to listen. The music overshadowed the lyrics in some of the songs, while some are melodies which are good to listen. Choreography of songs are good in parts. The selection of costumes in some songs are of poor taste. However, the song 'Om Namo Siva Rudraya" picturisation is extraordinary and Shafi should be commended for giving an excellent performance in that song. As a whole, the film lost the magical touch of Trivikram.

REMARKS:
The first half an hour of the second half is little boring as the director lost grip on the screenplay. Audiences loses their patience. But, Trivikram has tried to invoke the action drama to capture the attention of mass audiences. Action scenes in the film are quite stylish. Watch the film for Mahesh Babu"s performance and the witty dialogues by Trivikram.

Cast: Mahesh Babu, Anushka, Prakash Raj, Rao Ramesh, Shafi, Ali, Sunil, Brahmanandam, Subbaraju, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Tanikella Bharani, Raghubabu, MS Narayana, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Amit, Veda and others.
Credits: Music – Mani Sharma, Cinematography – Yash Bhatt and Sunil Patel, Editing – Sreekar Prasad, Presents – Satya Ramamurthy, Producers – Singanamala Ramesh, C Kalyan, Story, screenplay, direction, dialogues – Trivikram Srinivas
Banner: Kanakaratna Movies
Released on: October 7, 2010