N V SATYANARAYANA

Friday, October 22, 2010

Raktha Charitra Movie Review


Raktha Charitra
Movie Details
Rating : 3.5
Caption : Rakta Charitra 1 is for RGV fans.
Photo Gallery

Details:

Banner: Studio Cinergy Pictures
Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Suriya, Shatrughan Sinha, Priyamani, Radhika Apte, Sudeep, Abhimanyu Singh,
Story: Prashant Pandey
Cinematography: Amol Rathod
Editing: Nipun Ashok Gupta
Music: Dharam-Sandeep
Producer: Madhu Mantena, Sheetal Vinod Talwar
Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Story:

Rakta Charitra-1 is primarily focused on the birth and rise of ‘Paritala Ravi’. Even though RGV mixed some fiction and commercial elements to the real story to appease masses, most of the content is inspired and grasped from Paritala Ravindra’s life.

Veerabhadraiah (Rajendra Gupta) is a trusted aide of MLA Narasimha Reddy. Veerabhadraiah gets killed due to caste based reasons planted by Nagamani Reddy (Kota Srinivasa Rao) in the mind of Narasimha Reddy. Veerabhadraiah’s elder son Shankar Ravi (Sushant) seeks revenge on Narasimha Reddy and he too gets killed. Shankar’s younger brother Pratap Ravi (Vivek Oberoi) who was far from all this until then vows revenge. He kills Narasimha Reddy, Nagamani Reddy and others to become a big force in Anandapuram region.

This enrages Nagamani Reddy’s son Bukka Reddy (Abhimanyu Singh) and he waits for the right time to eliminate Pratap Ravi. In the meantime Bukka Reddy irks newly turned politician Shivaji Rao (Shatrughan Sinha), who in turn supports Pratap to put an end to Bukka Reddy. What follows is a thrilling and spine chilling finale which opens gates to the second part of this iconic tale

Performances:

Vivek Oberoi’s performance as Pratap Ravi is praiseworthy. He has underplayed the role to the maximum. This can be regarded as his best performance till date. Ram Gopal Varma showed his faith in Vivek to do justice to Paritala Ravi’s role and the actor delivered with a power packed performance.

Abhimanyu Singh as Bukka Reddy stole the show. This is one of the truly wicked and villainous characters on Indian screen and Abhimanyu lived up to all the superlatives of the role. He did a terrific job that audiences even crave for his villainous instincts and enjoy his cruelness.

Shatrughan Sinha is OK. NTR fans might not like to see Shotgun saab doing this role as they feel that no one can do justice to NTR’s role. It is true to some extent. However, Shatrughan tried his best to be and behave like NTR.

Radhika Apte is apt as Ravi’s wife. Her performance is pretty natural and striking. Kota Sirnivasa Rao once again does commendable job under RGV direction. He is perhaps one of the few directors who know to utilize the full talent of Kota.

Rest all did their part as per the director’s requirements. Tanikella Bharani and Subhalekha Sudhakar’s presence should do some good to the nativity factor which is seriously lacking in this film.

Analysis:

Our filmmakers glorified faction concept and made numerous clichéd films which gave wrong ideas on factionists. Ram Gopal Varma tried to show the real faction with a tinge of fiction. Varma hit the right chords by not taking sides and simply focused on the proceedings. He has driven the film in the director’s point of view and that helped the characters to look natural. In spite of dealing this story in an extremely creative manner, RGV didn’t dare enough to shoot the film in real locations. Saying that, RGV deserves all the praises for daringly canning some controversial scenes on NTR (Shatrugan) and Obul Reddy (Abhimanyu) characters. One should definitely watch this film to get the real taste of Rayalaseema faction.

It is clichéd to state that RGV’s film is technically brilliant. Rakta Charitra is not an exception to it. It is indeed one of his best when it comes to the technicalities. Amol Rathod’s cinematography is brilliant. He has not only grasped RGV’s intentions but also added his own touch to make the film look spectacular. Dharam-Sandeep’s music is another asset to this movie. Background score deserves a pat. Dialogues written by Nageswara Rao are not that great except for few striking punch lines. RGV believes in the adage ‘Action speaks louder than words’. However it is one of the rarest occasions in which RGV has actually given ample time for the dialog writer to exhibit his skills. Editing is crisp but it could’ve been crispier in the first hour. Art is not up to the mark as the Bihar kind of setup didn’t match to Anantapuram backdrop.

Plus Points:The concept itself is superb. When a director like RGV deals such subject the output will be definitely worth a watch.
Pratap Reddy’s sketch to kill Bukka Reddy is excellent. Unarguably, it is the best scene in the film.

RGV gives the right definition for faction in this film. His inimitable style of storytelling is the biggest plus point for RC.

Minus points:As the story, characters and emotions are completely based on Rayalaseema faction, RGV should’ve stuck to make this film solely in Telugu.

Not many of the North Indians and people from other states were aware of Ravi-Soori clash and that should mar the film’s (Hindi version) fortunes.

RGV’s voice over didn’t get well with the proceedings. It sounded like it was forced in many instances.

Verdict:First half is used for seeding the points that lead to violence filled revenge and a part of revenge; second half gives the power of politics to do whatever a leader wants to.

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