Poola Rangadu Review

Ranga lives in the mortal fear of being eliminated by either Konda Reddy or Lala Goud, the dreaded rivals in Warangal, but he dares to woo the latter's daughter in order to bail himself out from a trap he has unknowingly fallen into.  Does this sound a bit illogical?  Never mind, because Veerabhadram (director) makes you forget all logic by dishing out the best laugh riot of the season.  Selling an impossibility is Poola Rangadu, with its share of rhyming dialogues (credit goes to dialogue-writer Sridhar Seepana), slapstick comedy (a bunch of cracks lifted from Vamsi's films), two rivals who are ever at each other's throats (Dev Gill and Pradeep Rawat, inspired by SS Rajamouli-style villains), a love story that pans out predictably, but which receives green signal from a reformed father sooner than expected and so forth.

Poola Rangadu bears testimony to the fact that even if your story is motheaten, if you have got the right mix of ideas to bestow your film with, you can sell it to an audience loving popcorn stuff and escapist fare.  Watching some of the scenes in the first half, one feels that it will not be wrong to ask most of our filmmakers to sit and learn how to write a scene.  The director spins one amusing scene after another, and the good news is that it is not just Sunil, but practically everyone joins him in offering us a side-splitting show.  Our hero has to speak in English so as to save Konda Reddy (Dev Gill of Magadheera fame) an embarrassment and give a snub to Lala Goud.  "This land is not yours, this land is not others, this land is another's (pointing to himself)...  So 'dabanng' (which is translated as 'dobbei').  The film has one too many such uproarious lines.

Ranga (Sunil), who has lost his all in real estate business, happens to buy a disputed 30-acre land in Warangal.  Konda and Lala see the land as an issue of their prestige.  So, whoever buys the land will have to shed his blood for the sin.  Ranga, who doesn't know the background, arrives from Hyderabad to sell away his land for a higher price.  Ali, his friend, enlightens him and advises him to befriend Anitha (Isha Chawla), Lala's daughter, so as to reach out to her father.  By sheer accident, he impresses Konda and becomes his trusted lieutenant.  Even as Anitha falls in love with the innocent and funny Ranga, Konda wants to marry Anitha to old settle scores with Lala.  Their enmity dates back to 20 years.

The second half is about how Ranga effectively changes the course of the things and finally marries Anitha.

The biggest strength of the movie is its comedy.  While the first half is lively, the second half becomes a bit knotty and routine.  The film keeps you guessing about who between Konda and Lala will come to know the truth about Ranga's actual identity.

Sunil was an ace.  Though his comedy was unvarying, his dances were better.  Dev Gill is an able actor and you have the feeling that he should get better roles like this one.  Isha Chawla is not very gorgeous, but her pastoral look was natural.  Pradeep Rawat was a revelation after his transformation.  Ali, Krishna Bhagawan, Satyam Rajesh, Pritvhi and Kota were good in their respective roles.

The film scores technically as well.  The songs were rightly placed and the duration was alright.  There are no lose ends in the movie, though why nobody advises Ranga against telling Konda the truth, thereby unwisely inviting trouble was not convincing.  Also, are we to see that the reason behind none of Lala's henchmen coming to save Ranga from being killed by Konda in the climax was meant to make the hero brandish his six-pack abs?

Forget to ask those questions and you have a laugh-out-loud movie in Poola Rangadu.

Released on: 18th Feb, 2012