Sri Rama Rajyam Movie Review by Chaitanya Kumar Vummethala

Sri Rama Rajyam, Long Pending Review from my side. I wanted to do some extensive research on Ramayana and specifically on Uttara Kanda before writing the review on this one, because I never understood the divinity of character-Rama in Ramayana, since ages. I thought at least after watching the movie, my perception towards Ramayana and character-Rama might change! let us see how the movie influenced me and my overall analysis on it.

One of the biggest stars of tollywood - Balakrishna has taken this project as a prestigious one and put his 100% effort to make it as an evergreen classic. The plot of the movie is based on the old classic - Lava Kusha (the biggest blockbuster of all time in the annals of Telugu film history), with the very same story - Uttara Kanda of Ramayana.
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Screenplay & Direction: Bapu, the legendary director and hard core worshiper of Lord Rama, always wanted to make movies on the lines of Ramayana and this time he chose - Uttara Kanda of Ramayana and named it as Sri Rama Rajyam. 

Other than using the latest technology and trends in the market, Bapu never tilted the actual story line. Everyone can visualize his vast experience in film making, handling the script by coordinating with the whole technical team and extracting performances from the 3 kids, Nayanathara, Balakrishna, ANR among other supporting cast. Bapu's taking, screenplay and the way he utilized the latest technologies were mind blowing (at this age)! No mistakes found in this department, other than a little slower pace and missing creativity in molding the story (this is quite natural for the kind of theme he selected).

Dialogues: Legendary Ramana Garu, contributed his part as per the requirement.

Music: Maestro Illayaraja, mesmerized with every tune of this album. I hope SRR album should stand as the top music album of the year, mixed with the great back ground score and re-recording are the biggest highlights of the movie.

Lyrics: Jonnavitthula Ramalingeswara Rao, I believe that lyrics for any song are like more than life for that song. From the lessons of history one can learn this and in this album, every line, every song he excelled all the way and stood as the pillar of the movie.

Editing: GG Krishna, no comments - cause the captain is Bapu here and will have very limited scope for editing, such a visionary is Bapu and cant blame GG Krishna for any such mistakes.

Cinematography: Raju, marvelous is suitable word for his work. Every frame he picturized is a visual treat and the way he shot the first song is brilliant. 2011 is the year of cinematography excellence in tollywood, an amazing improvement and I can confidently say that our standards in this department have improved a lot. 

Art Department: S Ravinder, good job - unlike other commercial movies, SRR has a lot of scope to show the importance of Art Direction and Ravinder succeeded well with his creative ability in forming the sets as per the requirement.

Producer: Yalamanchali Sai Babu's. Though it is Bapu-Ramana's vision to remake the old classic Lava Kusha again and make it as a historical project, it is actually the producer's passion towards mythological movie and his conviction to make it with NBK is the end result of Sri Rama Rajyam and the truth is that with out the commercial support from producer it is quite impossible to come out with such a project. 

Artists Performances:

Cast: Master Gaurav, Master Dhanush Kumar, Master Pavan Sriram, ANR, Bala Krishna, Nayanatara, Srikanth, Sameer, Brahmanandam, Balayya, Murali Mohan, Vinda Dhara Singh, Sudha, Sana, KR Vijaya, Siva Parvathy, Jhansi, Hema, Rallapalli, AV Subramanyam, Roja, Balaiah etc.,

To start with, Master Gaurav (Lava) and Master Dhanush Kumar (Kusha) along with Master Pavan Sriram (Balaraju / Child Hanuman), have excelled in every scene and proved that the industry will certainly have a great future. 

ANR as Maharshi Valmiki is apt and did justice to the key role with his vast experience. Balakrishna and Nayantara as Rama and Seetha also did their best and added value to the overall outcome, Nayantara has really come up with the career best performance in the role of Seetha in SRR. Balakrishna's controlled performance in the movie is the best example for his discipline and dedication. 

Brahmanandam's limited but key role is the most important character in the movie but never met the expectations. On the other hand - leaving Srikanth (who did a decent job as lakshmana), Sameer, Balayya, Murali Mohan, Rallapalli, Sudha, Sana, KR Vijaya, Siva Parvathy, Jhansi & Hema (among others) all have very little scope to perform with their limited roles but they did justice.

AV Subramanyam (as Naradha) and Vinda Dhara Singh (as Hanuman) are not apt to their respective roles and remained as minus (as per my view). Roja as Bhoodevi has to out-perform but never made the mark, Balaiah as Maharshi Vasishta has not performed at his level.

Overall Analysis: 
Though the movie has all the ingredients required for such genre movies, my strong and gut feeling is that, Sri Rama Rajyam is not the movie for today's  movie lovers - Please click on the above link to read more about my analysis on Sri Rama Rajyam!
However, industry got a chance to recognize 5 best performers from this flick, and they are the 3 kids, NBK and Nayanathara! applause to Bapu for giving them such a wonderful opportunity.

My rating for Sri Rama Rajyam is 3.25/5.