The best and the worst Telugu films of 2022 so far: RRR, Major, Sarkaru Vaari Patta, Bheemla Nayak on the list

Tollywood superstar Allu Arjun’s Pushpa: The Rise sprung a surprise across the country, especially in the Hindi belt. The film was released during the Christmas holiday in 2021, and continued its successful run well into the first half of January, with no major challenges at the box office.

Pushpa became a huge hit and turned into a pop-cultural phenomenon. Pushpa, his quirky mannerisms and overly heroic punchlines captured the imaginations of people from house parties to public interest announcements to wedding ceremonies to electoral campaigns. Pushpa dominated the news cycle beyond its successful theatrical run.

A still from Pushpa: The Rise.

While Pushpa was a huge hit in the Hindi belt, the film struggled to break even in its home ground, Andhra Pradesh. Despite running to packed houses since day one, the stringent policy by the state government at the time in regulating the movie ticket prices undercut the profits of the movie. Following the weeks of hard negotiations with the Jagan Mohan Reddy government under the leadership of Tollywood superstar Chiranjeevi, there was a breakthrough in the matter. The government relented and allowed to increase base ticket prices across the cinema halls, allowing the future movies to make profits. And one of the biggest beneficiaries was director SS Rajamouli’s RRR. The Ram Charan-Jr NTR film won accolades not just in India, but internationally too after it came out in Netflix.

Not just on the ticket windows, the Telugu film industry also did deliver a handful of good movies that rewarded the audience who braved the pandemic to sit and cheer in a packed cinema hall. However, the ratio of good movies to bad movies was annoyingly low.

The good ones:

RRR

Director SS Rajamouli’s reimagination of a freedom revolt against the British Raj was a much-needed break to the audience after suffering two years of pandemic and everything that it brought with it. The story is set in the 1920s when the British were at the peak of their power in India. The film almost assumes a magical quality with oversized wild animals and two men, who are the paragon of old-school machismo, pulling off some incredible stunts that are beyond the natural and limited strengths of average human beings. It’s fantasy land, where two Indians best the imperial bigots in every aspect. From electrifying dance-offs to shooting rifles to being chivalrous to being cunning and dangerous, the two highly skilled assassins bring the empire to its knees. Ram Charan and Jr NTR breathe life into a pair of perfect mythical heroes dreamt up by Rajamouli.

A still from RRR (Photo: DVV Entertainment/Twitter)

Major

Major was a passion project for Adivi Sesh, who wrote the film’s screenplay, besides playing the lead role in it. And he gets a little greedy with the project as he packs everything in the film that makes him look good on the screen, and sort of undermines the other aspects of the storytelling that would do full justice to the life and sacrifice of the 26/11 hero Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan. The emotional component of the movie is engrossing, even though it is familiar. And a lot of credit should go to Revathy and Prakash Raj. They bring to life the thought process of parents who are unwilling to send away their son to fight at the borders. The film has its flaws but it also has its moments.

Ante Sundaraniki

The structure of the narration is in perfect sync with the personality of its protagonist, Sundar, played by an in-form Nani. The movie tells the romantic story of a couple who belong to different religious backgrounds. Sundar and Leela (Nazriya Nazim) belong to conservative families who snark at those who don’t belong to their own community. But, love is blind to religion and all other made-up social differences. The couple is then forced to spin a web of never-ending lies to circumvent the pride and prejudices of their families, resulting in an irrelevant flow of humour, with a pleasant fluency.

Virata Parvam

This film ends up in the best films list by a very thin margin. If not for an endearing and movingly delicate performance from Sai Pallavi, this film would have been beyond saving. She single-handedly makes us care about this film and everything else that happens in it. The film, which is said to be inspired by true events, tells the love story of a brave woman, who takes a life-altering journey into the most unsafe jungles in search of a Naxal leader, who has stolen her heart with his revolutionary poems.

The bad ones:

Sarkaru Vaari Paata

Mahesh Babu plays an NRI character who returns to his homeland to fix its problems. In this edition, he asks people to wake up and smell the systemic corruption, that lets the rich and powerful people rip off the hard-working and decent commoners. The subject of the movie is relevant and even urgent, but the filmmakers throw it away the opportunity by turning this movie into an exercise in hero worship.

Acharya

This is easily one of the dullest movies to roll out of the Telugu film industry. Every frame and scene in the movie sufferers from director Koratala Siva’s failure to think of something original.

Bangarraju

Bangarraju is the follow-up film to Soggade Chinni Nayana. This also appears to be Nagarjuna’s attempt to boost the acting career of Naga Chaitanya. And it raises the question that if Nagarjuna really wanted to help Naga Chaitanya, why would he make him do this film in the first place?

Prabhas and Pooja Hegde in Radhe Shyam.

Radhe Shyam

After the humongous success of Baahubali 1 and 2, Prabhas has fallen into a trap of larger-than-life blockbusters. It doesn’t matter how bad the movie is but it needs to be mounted on expansive scale. It doesn’t matter if a movie lacks heart, and soul, as long as it is humongous, Prabhas seems to have no qualms starring in it.

Bheemla Nayak

It is the remake of the Malayalam hit Ayyappanum Koshiyum. Like Vakeel Saab, Pawan Kalyan finds a way to make this film, which was originally a battle of egos that deals with class, social and cultural conflicts, all about himself.

F3

Director Anil Ravipudi is in the process of making F4 it seems. The horror!