Dhandoraa Movie Review

After delivering a superb performance in a crucial role earlier this year with the social drama film ‘Court: State vs A Nobody’, the senior actor, Sivaji, chose to come up with yet another social drama film, Dhandoraa. The debutant director, Muralikanth Devasoth, chose a serious drama for his first film as a director and roped in Sivaji, Navdeep, Nandu and a few other notable actors to play crucial roles. Ravindra Benerjee Muppaneni, produced this hard-hitting film. After being in the news with an attention-grabbing teaser and trailer, the film was released in theatres today. Did, Sivaji, deliver yet another hit after the super successful, Court: State vs A Nobody? How did Navdeep do in an out-and-out rural character? Did the debutant director, Muralikanth Devasoth, come up with a hard-hitting and socially relevant and relatable film? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Sivaji(Sivaji), a middle-aged man from a remote village in Medak district in united Andhra Pradesh, is a caste fanatic. He strongly believes that girls in his caste, have to marry only the boys who hail from the same caste. What happens when Sivaji’s daughter falls in love with a boy who hails from a lower caste and Sivaji’s son falls in love with the daughter of an MLA? How did Shivaji react to their love stories? How did the caste based equations in the society, impact Sivaji, his son, his daughter and the people around him? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

After, ‘Court: State vs A Nobody’, Sivaji, got yet another author-backed role and he delivered a first-rate performance. There are at least four sequences in the film where he delivered a standout performance. It is inarguably one of his career’s best performances. Navdeep in the role of the village sarpanch was effortless. His comedy timing and the ease during the emotional sequence during the climax, were very commendable.

Nandu got a character with multiple shades and he did full justice to his role. His performance during the last thirty minutes of the film deserves a special mention. Radhya Suresh got a very crucial role and she too delivered a commendable performance. Her role demands her to emote both helplessness and strength headedness and she excelled with both variations effectively. Bindu Madhavi did a good job with her performance. The film had at least another six important roles and all the actors who played those roles did a decent to good job with their performances, irrespective of the inconsistencies in the way their roles were written and executed.

Technicalities:

Mark K. Robin came up with a decent background score that blended well with the theme of the film but at times, the score appeared a bit too loud. A heart-touching chartbuster for the romantic track would have helped to overlook the flaws in writing for the track but the song the music director came up, did not help the cause.

Venkat R. Shakamuri’s cinematography is standard. He delivered what was required for the genre of the film within the limited resources available. Editing by, Srujana Adusumilli, should have been better, especially during the first half. Even at just around two hours and fifteen minutes runtime, the film appeared a bit dragged at times. Producer, Ravindra Benerjee Muppaneni, should be appreciated for backing a serious social drama. The production values are just decent. Whoever came up with the idea of using, ‘Oye Raju Kannullo Nuvve’ & ‘Anitha O Anitha’, songs at two places in the film, deserves a special mention. Both the sequences worked out well. Let’s discuss the director, Muralikanth Devasoth’s work in the analysis section.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Socially Relevant Core Plot
2.⁠ ⁠Sivaji Performance
3.⁠ ⁠Pre-Interval Sequence
4.⁠ ⁠Last 30 Minutes

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Romantic Track
2.⁠ ⁠Inconsistent Execution
3.⁠ ⁠Too Many Subplots

Analysis:

The Tamil & Malayalam film industries are known for producing socially relevant, hard-hitting films. In the Telugu film industry, it is rare to see social drama films. But this year, the success of ‘Court: State vs A Nobody’ and ‘The Girlfriend’, proved that the Telugu audience will always appreciate well-made social dramas. The directors from the Tamil film industry are well known for making realistic social drama films with the backdrop of ‘Caste’ and ‘Inequalities in the society’. It is very rare to see such films in the Telugu film industry. Dhandoraa is one such rare film from Tollywood that talks about caste, untouchability and inequality. The good thing about, Dhandoraa, is that the director to a large extent, stayed away from taking sides and narrated the story. We will see how people are still following the age-old rules in the name of ‘Caste’ and how it is impacting the lives of people but the makers at most parts stayed away from being overtly preachy & taking sides.

The director, Muralikanth Devasoth, should be appreciated for selecting such a socially relevant subject and making the film in a fairly engaging manner. If we break the film into three acts – action, consequences & realisation, the director succeeded in two acts out of the three. The start of act two – The pre-interval sequence and the entire act three – the last thirty minutes worked in favour of the film. The hard-hitting and shocking factor during the pre-interval sequence and the emotional drama during the last thirty minutes of the film, came out very well. Both the above-mentioned portions along with Sivaji, Nandu, Navdeep and Raadhya Suresh’s performance, made the film fairly engaging. Especially, Sivaji, delivered one of his career best performances. Credit should be given to the director for coming up with good drama in most places, for the actors to excel in their performance. The pay-off sequence for Navdeep’s character, Sivaji’s outburst in the court, Nandu’s realisation sequence and Raadhya Suresh’s outburst in the climax, are the major highlights of the film.

The major problem with the film is the first act – Romantic track. Although, both the actors, Ravikrishna and Manika Chikkala, performed well, the romantic track between them did not give the desired impact because of poor writing. The entire track hardly had any emotionally driven feel-good and romantic moments. All we get to see is the boy keep pestering the girl to let him kiss her. Because of a lack of strong writing in the romantic track, there was no strong emotional connection established and there was not much empathy generated when the would-be couple ended up meeting a tragedy. Better care in writing for this track would have made the film a much better watch. Another drawback in the film is that it has too many subplots and apart from Navdeep’s subplot, none of the other subplots, got a proper pay-off. Bindu Madhavi’s episode, appeared to be dragged forever. Aditi Bhavaraju and Mounika Reddy’s tracks, did not have proper pay-offs and closure to their roles. Also, better care should have been taken in styling Ravikrishna’s character. His character commands realistic styling but what we get to see is the character wearing ‘almost’ perfectly designed clothes. The styling for Ravikrishna’s character and the picture-perfect make-up used for Manika Chikkala’s character looked completely out of place.

Overall, Dhandoraa is a hard-hitting social drama and it was told in a fairly engaging manner in parts, along with good performances from most of the actors. You may watch the film if you like to watch fairly engaging realistic social drama films. However, better care in writing the romantic track and a bit more care in fine-tuning the inconsistency in execution, would have made the film a much better watch.

Final Verdict – Impactful But Inconsistent

Rating – 2.5/5