Rakhee Telugu Movie
Rakhi breaks the recent trends in the Telugu film industry on many counts. For instance, the hero has a sense of humor and allows himself to be referred to as a fatso. First of all casting a hero who is not in the best of shape is a daring thing. This is a show of tremendous confidence by the director as well as the hero in the intrinsic strength of the story, characterization, narrative, and their directing and acting abilities respectively. Heroism lies in the heart and mind of a person not in his muscles or appearances. Jr. NTR proves this and scores heavily in Rakhi with his sheer acting power, unperturbed by his looks.
Krishna Vamsi also breaks the trend of the superfluous handling of social problems in movies. Though illegal, he gives a possible solution to a raging social problem: cruelty meted out to women in India. His protagonist doesn't look like a fake. Neither his portrayal of the police department nor the depiction of the love scenes are completely filmy. They boarder on reality yet they are filmy.
Rakhi scores on another count that it is a movie based on sister sentiment, a rare thing in Telugu movies these days.
Ramakrishna (Jr. NTR), affectionately called Rakhi, is the son of a railway employee (Chandramohan) and grandson of a railway porter (Kota Srinivasa Rao). He aspires to join the railways as an assistant station master. He dotes on his sister who is poised to get married. Tripura(Ileana) is his neighbor and works as a media reporter. Ramakrishna is in love with Tripura.
His sister gets married to a software engineer planning to move to USA. But the greedy in-laws burn his sister to make way for a second marriage of his brother-in-law for more dowry. Ramakrishna and his bereaved family knock the doors of justice. The police and the courts both fail them. An innocent girl who is burnt by their in laws is proved to be insane, of loose character, and suicidal. That's it. Ramakrishna takes the laws to his own hands.
The way Ramakrishna avenges his sister's death is unique. But this nation is full of crimes against women. Rapes are happening in police stations, hospitals, schools, and everywhere. Acid is thrown on girl students and they are hacked in examination halls. Ramakrishna becomes a serial avenger to balance the equation of terror against women.
A quite convincing story and superb acting by Jr. NTR make Rakhi worth watching. The romance scenes involving NTR and Ileana are made spicy with the use mild expletives by Ileana.
The direction is good, though not exceptional. The presence of characters like Sunil is not merely for the sake of cracking a joke or two. They have strong connection to the story. And some well directed scenes haunt after you have watched the movie.
