Ramcsays….

Note: It may be not a review as I did not discuss about the performances and about the technical departments and the quality and richness of the movie. You may accept it or not. I just discussed about the concept. It was purely on the makers.

First of all who is a LEADER? What does he do? – In my opinion he is a person who rules or guides or inspires others and he should be a drawing card. Ok fine now coming to the latest movie Leader directed by Shekar Kammula starring Daggupati Rana ,Richa Gangopadhyaya ,Priya Anand, Suhasini and others. This movie has shown a character who is exotic in his style to be a Leader in fact a CM of a state. The film introduces Rana Daggupati to the silver screen and two other beautiful dames too. The movie has been released with a huge blatant promotion including some of the inspiring songs and some of the leaders from our past in the trailers. The film had claimed before release that it will inspire the people with a sublime emotion and it will show what and how a Leader should be and who a Leader is. But it entirely missed the track and the train had gone in a reverse direction. The leader in this movie and his ideas are just taken for granted and everything made us feel that “Shit this is just a Movie” and nothing else and the inspiring part is out of question. Then why to promote the film in a patriotic way?

Coming to the story line – The film starts with the CM being killed in a bomb attack and his last wish was to make his son as CM. His son Arjun Prasad returns from US (in one scene it is mentioned that he is the CEO of one of the fortune 500 company) and wants to fulfill his father’s wish. He is accompanied by Ali (Harshavardhan) and by a lady journalist (Priya Anand).  They together form a plan and think on how to achieve this. From where they get the money and what they will do and what are the challenges they faced and how they overcome them and what the movie wanted to convey forms the rest of the film.

In my terms a Leader is who leads from the font, but what the film has portrayed that character certainly in a different way. Let’s talk about the film – In this movie CM has many appointments and much free time to spend his personal life. He goes for Jogging in the morning with his convoy and security running behind him. He goes on a date and he sings songs with his love and his partner dances with security accompanying her, he goes on an important assignment and in the middle they run out to the fields singing songs. His partner sits on the bonnet oh his convoy and the convoy moves forward. Agrrrrrr what am I seeing? The word CM has become a modal word in the whole movie everyone calls and uses this word and this word CM has lost its image (thanks that they have not used word – Chief Minister)

I accept some people saying that “He is also a Human being and he has his personal life too and that is what the director had shown. Ok I accept but what is the Title of the movie and the intention of this man coming into politics (in fact the film also should be taken into consideration). What is all this? If the director wants to show the chemistry between the Hero and Heroine no one has stopped him from imagination (Hero and Heroine can imagine a song as a duet – just both) but why the hell is the security accompanying them? How can any Security personnel allow to stop the convoy and go and sing songs and dance. They have their own duty.

Coming to real scenarios – A CM convoy will be accompanied by a Senior IPS officer and Z category security and once it starts it will stop only at the destination with some exceptions (definitely not for what I mentioned above). Come on man being Chief Minister is not a joke. Ok let’s talk in film terms – If you say this is a fictional film then it’s not – You are using a higher Authority of the state to portray what you wanna show. You should follow something (some protocols) when showing a defined position. Making research may have helped; this is where Hollywood captivates the originality of anything they show. Every movie needs a research on How, What, Why, when etc… The movie was concentrating on CM itself and forgot the word Leader. It was concentrating on how to achieve things – that’s it!!!

And coming to the character of CM need not have body language, he should have the Leadership qualities – but where did the character display these qualities. The director solely concentrated on just one theme – Corruption till the end of the movie. Is this the only problem and will the CM only think of this in his whole term? The director has taken everything for granted for this character.

The film started with a serious concept, it held tight and then the film loosens in the middle and tried to grip again but it already lost its grip on the plot, and now the audience were just watching Love story of a CM. Even some of the last sequences were good but they cannot help the movie.

Sorry if I got too logical with this film but the Title and the much created Hype made me feel like this.

About the performance Just want to mention Rana – He has done good has good screen presence but had to improve lot on his facial expressions (No emotions were seen when his father died and at some sequences in the second half).I did not find any need of two heroines in the movie. Priya Anand’s role was unnecessary and desolate. To understand most of this, watch the movie.

Coming to the good part of the movie – The hero was awesome and heroines are beautiful. Some sequences like – The slapping episode of MLAs son was very good, the turning back to Kota Srinivas Rao and dialogues there regarding the caste was good.

Bottom Line: – What is CM word used in this movie, if it is Chief Minister , then he has to change a lot and I may not want this kind of CM for my state. I want a REAL LEADER. But one thing Rana is HANDSOME. Go to watch him.

After King another four letter name starting with K – KEDI, Nag is back after a long time. Kedi is just another movie which starred handsome Nag and some beautiful ladies.  But at one aspect it’s slightly different from previous movies of Nagarjuna. Previously at middle or initial days of his career Nag has done some of movies which come under same genre of Kedi but those were serious and Nag was also a serious man in those. But Kedi differed in this and was stylish with very little entertainment. The movie has some shades of Hollywood kinda making but not exactly the same way. The song – in fact a back ground score – Janiya Jane Jana is like the scene in Man on Fire, the Casino was shown as shown in movie 21.

Coming to the story line – The movie starts with Nag being interrogated by a Police officer Shekar (Sayaji Shinde).Then Nag starts his story when and why he became what he was now. Ramesh alias Rummy (Nag) and Janaki are childhood friends and Rummy loves Janaki and asks her to elope with him but Janaki refuses and asks Rummy to earn money, name and fame then she would come with him. Then Rummy goes to earn money and learns to earn money just for that day and live with that. He indulges in the gambling and excels in that play with tricks. He works for bad people and earns money by cheating people with his close aide Arshad (Harshavardhan). He helps a foreign girl to find her sister who was kidnapped, she proposes him but he lets that down saying it will not work out. The film goes very well in the first half with some twists and some humorous scenes involved the comedy king Brahmi. Watch the movie for knowing why he started, who is Mamatha Mohandas, where is childhood friend Janaki? And what happens to both at last.

Coming to the performances of the Movie – Nag was at his best for the role. He is stylish with splendid costumes looking glamorous. He went with ease with the character Rummy. Sayaji Shine was another important character in this movie. He went off well as a Police officer. Harshavardhan has impressed as an close aide to Rummy. Brahmi was just good not because of his performance but the character which was not written well. The comedy track from Brahmi was disappointing. Too many villains – all were ok. There was no villainism but just heroism in this movie. Mamatha Mohandas was ok with her performance to the extent of her character. Ankur as Chandra with Negative Shade has made entry into Telugu and was impressive.

In spite of all this I felt the movie was side tracked from the main plot by including unnecessary songs (3 songs were simply unnecessary). I don’t know exactly but the screenplay may have disturbed the movie a little bit. Too many twists and plots confused the audience in terms where the last scene ended and where the new plot started. (Think of Memento – KEDI was not as complicated as that but we can say a part of that complication). The second half was elasticized till the saturation point is reached and held without releasing it. The movie came back to the same routine movie. In fact from the first half we will be seeing a movie with a different treatment but coming back to the same cave.

Coming to the technical things – Songs – Title Song was amazing and will leave you humming throughout the movie and will continue after coming out of the Cinema. The song Janiya Jane was lavishly made with foot tapping music and the photography was rich, the part I liked technically in this movie is this sequence.  Majorly the movie was shot in Goa and made the movie feel a lively environment for the plot too. The background score was better than the songs.

In this season from the movies released I felt this movie to be good (entirely my opinion) and was definitely it’s a different kind of treatment to the movie from the technical department. With some songs removed and a changed climax, KEDI would be wonderful. It’s just like a Hollywood script made in Tollywood with some shades of Hollywood. Should have been made in a more gripping way.

Bottom Line: This movie cannot be ignored at the same time cannot expect much.