Ramgopal Varma’s Rakta Charitra, like many of his earlier movies got into controversies, but it did manage to win accolades from all corners. He has been strangely silent through the release of its sequel Rakta Charitra 2. That adds to a certain level of mystique to the movie. Also it stars Surya, a role inspired from Maddelacheruvu Suri. 123telugu.com takes a look at how the movie is!

What’s it about: Rakta Charitra narrates us about how Pratap Ravi (Vivek Oberori), an average guy, becomes a blood chasing killer and how he rises in stature – from being a leader of a group to a popular politician. Rakta Charitra 2 starts off exactly where Rakta Charitra ended. At a time when no one questions the power, wisdom and influence of Pratap, Surya (played by Tamil actor Surya) plots and attempts to kill Pratap with a bomb blast. For the first time Pratap and his men are beaten by an ordinary man. They are also beaten by the police as they trace who the plotter is! In fact the police lead by Police Officer Mohan Prasad (Kannada actor Sudeep), first capture Surya’s wife Bhavani

(Priyamani) and uses her as a bait to arrest Surya.

It is in the jail that Surya tells us why he wants to kill Pratap and keeps hoping to kill him one day! It is having an enemy in the comfort zone of a jail that bothers Pratap! It is Pratap who has become a spot of bother for State’s politicians. Rakta Charitra 2 is a complex mixture of how a person’s thirst for revenge breaks a tough man’s defenses and how other political parties benefit from this war!

What is Good: It isn’t always that that you’d say that almost ‘everything works’ for a Telugu movie. Rakta Charitra 2 is so good. The first half is as amazing as any Telugu movie can get. The graph of the story goes up, stays up, and merges with how humans are conditioned by situations. The movie is an amazing journey into one man’s revenge story, and how other things like personal relationships, social responsibilities and intrinsic belief systems are stirred and shaken!

There are scenes like:

- a man coming to meet another person in a jail. The camera angles are such that you never know who is in the jail.

- A police office brings a culprit to courtroom, where he is attacked. Every frame in those scenes are lessons in film making.

- The denouement (post-climax) in which a police officer narrates a culprit how a so called hero always falls. The hero here says that his reasons and excuses to be a hero ended when he killed his villain, and hence he won’t fall!

Sudeep better his performance in Rann. Vivek Oberoi is amazing, and Surya beats them both, in the few scenes he has with them. To say that Surya acted brilliantly would be saying the obvious. Whenever he is on screen he uses his eyes, body language to directly stare at the soul of character which has only one aim – to kill! What an actor.

Yes Priyamani, Thanikella Bharani, Shatrugan Sinha are good too! One wonders why an actress like Priyamani choose few other films at all!

What is bad: The second part gets touch slower, as the director tries to bring in all the complex sides on one to stage. Also few scenes like the wife becoming a killer’s conscience are beaten. Nevertheless the movie manages to intrigue. Yes the climax could have been better, but it is the post climax that gives the movie its high. What might disappoint people is that the movie doesn’t side with any of the real life characters it has been inspired from. It never showcases either Paritala Ravi or Maddelacheruvu Suri as heroes, or victims or villains. Instead it puts them as men who grew and fell to certain situations. This is hard for typical Telugu audiences to understand.

Technical Departments: The screenplay and dialogue are stunning. Cinematography is top notch. Unlike the prequel, the re-recording is justified, and never gets louder. The other good thing compared to the first part is the way Ramgopal Varma’s narration becomes an addition to the movie. Yes he should have chosen someone else, but that’s ok. However, all kudos to him for making this movie, keeping it balanced to all sides and bringing up philosophy to the end. The way he uses Sudeep’s character as a judge of characters, and the way he uses the wives of his principal characters as their conscience deserves a special mention.

Final Point: For those who liked Ramgopal Varma’s Satya this is a must watch movie, as this is by far RGV’s best movie since Satya. One can even say that he even betters it! On the whole Rakta Charitra 2 is a real dose of how human mind can get what it wants – be it love or hatred! Ramu choose to tell the story of human’s ‘hatred’ and he does brilliant job out of it. Topic Over!