Ragada Review

Nagarjuna who was hell bent on ending 2010 on a happy note, came up with an action love triangle 'Ragada' with a time tested formula to make magic at the box office. The movie is a mass film that is feast to fans with absolute commercial elements like several fights and six songs, that has always been a success in Telugu cinema.

Story

'Ragada' is a story of Satya alias Kadapodu(Nagarjuna) who comes to Hyderabad with a motive.Peddhanna (Pradeep Rawat) is a gangster operating in the city with three important goons executing his orders.GK( Dev Gill) is Peddhanna's principal opponent. Satya saves GK from Peddhanna's men when the latter tries to kill him. Impressed with him, GK requests Satya to assist him in fighting Peddhanna. Sirisha(Anushka) is the daughter of GK's partner and stays in his house. With Satya and Sirisha meeting quite often, there is attraction and romance between them.Satya meanwhile kills two of the followers of Peddhanna through his witty plans.Peddhanna is raged at Satya and wants to get him killed. He sends his men to his hometown Kadapa to find out the whereabouts of his family. The story takes an interesting turn when Ashtalakshmi,(Priyamani) a bramhin girl requests Satya to help her family from Peddhanna.The rest of the story is full of twists and turns that makes for an interesting watch on whom is Satya in love with, what is the connection between his family and him coming to Hyderabad and his rivalry with gangster Peddhanna.

Peformances

Nagarjuna looks stunning and is every man's envy. Infact a few dialogues and scenes in the movie revolve around the topic of Nag's handsome personality. He looks a million bucks in every shot. He impresses the audience with his Rayalaseema accent. His dialogue 'Manchiki Cheruku gadda.. cheduki Ragada' is catchy.There are too many fights in this film and the actor pulls it off  with elan and charm. His comic timing with Bramhanandam is perfectly entetaining. Anushkha and Priyamani don't have much to do in the movie and are seen dancing more than acting in this film.However, Anushka's acting skills could have been used better in this comedy entertainer. Bramhanandam manages to tickle  your funny bones with his trademark histrionics. Kota Srinivasa Rao, Pradeep Rawat, Dharmavarapu Subramaniam did well. Dev Gill didn't impress with his performance at all. Child artiste Bharath was at his best and gave Bramhanandam a tough contest on screen.Raghubabu is cliched and yawn inducing. Priyamani delivered a better performance than Anushka in the little acting she got to do in this movie. There are half a dozen villains in this action flick and all of them gave whistle worthy performance.Charmee who lost oodles of weight looked smashing in the item number. She moved her butt with a rocket speed and set the screen ablaze with her movements.

Remarks

'Ragada' is an absolute Mass masala Telugu cinema. Though the story is predictable, the plot manages to entertain as it is cocktailed with fights, songs and comedy with a perfect timing. Over one and a half hour of the film has fights.Infact, every ten minutes in the movie has a fight scene.The dialogues are not competent enough to make you feel the emotion in the scene. Most of the dialogues give the audience a feeling of deja vu. For instance, the hero's sister screams in a scene, ' Champeyi annayya.. vaadini Champeyi' which reminds one of Ghazini and several other films with similar crowd cheers while hero gears up to murder the villain. Thaman's music was in tandem with the mass storyline of the movie. Three songs are worth listening to in this album. The locations in Jordan and Greece chosen to shoot the songs were feast to eyes. Comic scenes with Bramhy and Bharath come as a great relief in between innumerable fights. Pradeep Rawat is seen wearing the same black Kurta all through the movie which makes one wonder why.  The director failed to exploit Pradeep's acting skills in the script.Nagarjuna looks fifteen years younger than his age. The costumes were splendid and appealed to the star cast's body language. Veeru Potla capsuled action, glamour and sentiment with a perfect flow in story narration. The movie has a lot of surprises in the second half which make the audience sit at the edge of their seats. Despite several glitches, the movie doesn't bore because of perfect screenplay. Every fight is followed by a comedy scene or a song which makes the movie click.

Verdict

Ragada is a wholesome family entertainer with foot tapping music and reel load of surprises. Don't miss young ageing Nagarjuna this weekend in Ragada format.

Released on: 24th Dec, 2010