Nagarjuna powers a spooky thriller
nearly 25 minutes and which is quite gripping. The scenes between Samantha and Nagarjuna have come out very well. The director also cleverly inserts a message that relates to girls and women.
Nagarjuna plays the serious character of the mentalist with grace. It is interesting that Nagarjuna is getting his best roles in his 50s. It’s also good to see him not dancing about and romancing girls — this is a role that required acting prowess and Nagarjuna shows that he has it. Maybe other actors may now be open to doing this kind of role, seeing how successful it is.
Though Samantha’s role is small, she is stunning and definitely the highlight of the film. Actually she appears mostly at the climax of this film, in the last half hour, but even then she overshadows all the others.
Rao Ramesh appears in a cameo, but makes his presence felt. He fits exactly the character he plays. Seerath Kapoor sizzles, and Praveen, Kishore, and Ashwin provide the muchneeded entertainment. Shakala Shankar is there in a few comic scenes.
The other two important assets of the film are the music and dialogues. S.S. Thaman’s background score is among his best. His music throughout the film is one of its big plus points.
The dialogues by Abburi Ravi are thought-provoking and emotional. The dialogues between Samantha and Nagarjuna are emotional and are also connected to them both in real life. The cinematography is also good.
Raju Gari Gadhi 2 is both a horror comedy and an emotional drama. Nagarjuna and Samantha give excellent performances and director Ohmkar has orchestrated all the various elements to make another successful film.
An Indian actor sharing screen space with another Hollywood big star is rare, even though in the current scenario, we see a host of talented actors like Nawazuddin, Irrfan, Priyanka Chopra, to name a few, earning a pride of place in the coveted world of international cinema. But it’s even odder to see an Asian character (we presume all Abduls are Indians, but that may not be true!) and his name being used in the title itself. Victoria and Abdul, thus, makes many of us, sit up and take note of Shrabani Basu’s book Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant, on whose book this film is based, and tells us about the story of the friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant Abdul Karim. On the surface, it sounds fake as many of us will wonder: “How can it be true?” More so, since a large chunk of Indians have been fed on only the atrocities perpetrated by the British on the Indians that history abounds. Is it then, a fantasy? Far from it, as both British and Indian historians have written about somewhat of a bonding between two odd people, that too at a time when the two nations were two diametrically opposite sides.
In fact, the two were considered not just archenemies but also two sides of societal divide — the nobility and the low subjects.
We would have got a real insight into their unusual relationship had director Stephen Frears given us an untold story that hitherto was not made public. Unfortunately, as this film turns out to be, when we see Abdul getting transported — both literally and figuratively — into a world he would otherwise never dare to inhabit, we get to see only a