Raana in Sekhar Kammula's LEADER

LEADER is the latest offering from ace director: Sekhar Kammula and the famous production house: AVM Productions. Daggubati RAANA makes his debut as hero with this Leader film. Audio has been an instant hit with some great/sensible numbers!

STORY: Arjun Prasad (Raana) becomes CM with the support of MLA s after his father (Suman) dies in a bomb-blast. He wants to transform the politics and give a clean adminstration to the state. Eliminating corruption tops his agenda and he makes some intelligent moves in the process of achieving his goals. How he wins the hearts of common people and come back to power after sacrificing his CM post forms rest of the plot.

PERFORMANCES: RAANA is just awesome! His physic suited the role to the core and his dialogue delivery added to the attire. Though he looked uncomfortable in few romantic episodes, he is here to stay and has a long way to go. He looks great with beard (especially during the climax episode)…! RICHA and PRIYA are good enough for the female lead roles. HARSHAVARDAN, KOTA & SUHASINI steal the show with their super cool performances after a long time. GOLLAPUDI glitters in a 2 minute role. AHUTI, RAO RAMESH & SUBBARAJU are competant in their given characters!

TECHNICAL: SEKHAR KAMMULA has taken a different path this time with this socio-political drama. Screen-play is pretty good with some appreciable episodes here and there. But, it’s confusing at times with no clear script in hand. Dialogues were great (especially: okka ammaayiki nyaayam cheyaleni CM – unte entha, oodithe entha..??) Editing is jerky and disturbs the free flow of the film. Cinematography by Vijay C Kumar is sub-standard with lots of blurred-frames all over the film. He has failed completely in capturing the basic beauty of Assembly exteriors. Music by MJ Meyer is also not that effective as the new/bit versions lack the depth. But he makes up with his great Re-Recording and mixing work!

HIGHLIGHTS: Raana’s great performance as an aspiring Leader, the concept of bringing out the black money and using it for public, some great one-liner dialogues stand out in this better-than-ordinary film.

PITFALLS: Poor photography work, confusing and dragging 2nd half, mixing love thread with the social cause, over obsessed media, lazy screen-play, etc spoil the show. Udaya Bhanu‘s item number was of cheap taste!

FINAL ANALYSIS: Leader takes it’s own time to get started and goes well with some interesting episodes before interval. Post-interval, the film gets diluted with some un-necessary sub-plots and confuses the audience. Though the director tried his best to bring back the lost interest with some decent ending, it was already late by then.

LEADER is definitely a brave/bold attempt from the maverick director; but, it goes hay wire at times with many deviations in between. Can be watched once for it’s simple – yet – powerful message of an idealistic politician and some natural performances!

“Maa Telugu Thalliki…” lines were muted in the climax song and this surely spoils the party! How can a TELUGU THALLI song be muted in a TELUGU film after all..???