Nene Raju Nene Mantri movie review: Rana once again shows his intense acting skills

Cast: Rana Daggubati, Kajal Agarwal, Catherine Tresa, Sivaji Raja, Ashutosh Rana and others
Director: Teja

 

Veteran director Teja, who has been looking for a break, has joined hands with actor Rana Daggubati hoping to find the elusive blockbuster he has been looking for. Teja tends to pick new faces, so this is the first time he has cast an established actor like Rana Daggubati. Kajal Agarwal and Catherine Tresa play the female leads in the film that revolves around the hero’s political ambitions. Jogendra (Rana Daggubati) is a popular money lender in Uravakonda village in Anantapur district. He loves his wife Radha (Kajal Agarwal) deeply and so symbolically changes his name to Radha Jogendra a la Seetharama and Radhakrishna. The village sarpanch (Pradeep Rawat) insults and assaults his pregnant wife, which results in her miscarriage. Aiming to take revenge for what was done to his wife, Jogendra enters politics and defeats the sarpanch to become the new village head. But once having tasted power, he aspires for higher political positions. He becomes an MLA and then eyes the highest seat of power in the state — the chief ministership.

His political ascendency has one obstacle - the home minister (Ashutosh Rana). The film is about how Jogendra manoeuvres to get the top post and manages his personal life too. Teja delivered three blockbusters in his first three films with newcomers. But that was 15 years ago. For the last few years, he has directed only love stories and they have failed. After a string of failures at the box office, Teja appears to have reinvented himself; in this movie he makes a strong comeback. The emotions of love, hatred, smartness, cruelty in Radha Jogendra are well portrayed and some scenes resemble contemporary politics. The first half is very interesting, while the latter part suffers from an overdose of sentiment, but the climax is good. Rana Dagubatti does an excellent bit of acting.

The movie seems to be written for him to showcase his talent. His career appears to be on a high after his latest hit Baahubali. Kajal Agarwal competes with Rana in performance and has a great role in the film. Catherine Tresa also has a good role. After Sarrainodu, this is her best performance.  Sivaji Raja appears throughout the film along with Rana. Posani, Ashutosh Rana, Navdeep, Prabhas Srinu and Thanikella have all played their roles very well. The dialogues written by Lakshmi Bhupal are the highlight of the movie. Its trailer is already a hit because of Rana’s political dialogues, which are witty and thought-provoking. Cinematography by Venkat Dileep is excellent; he has created the required ambience for the story, while the background music by Anup Rubens is good. On the whole, it’s worth watching.