Raja the Great movie review: Ravi Teja sparkles in blind fury

Cast: Ravi Teja, Mehreen, Radhika, Prakash Raj, Sampath, Srinivas Reddy and others
Director: Anil Ravipudi

After a gap of nearly two years, actor Ravi Teja comes up with Raja the Great, directed by Anil Ravipudi and produced by Dil Raju. And for the first time in his career, Ravi Teja plays a visually-impaired person in the film.

A police officer (Prakash Raj) encounters a goon, who happens to be the brother of Devraj (Vivan Bhatena), a big mafia don. Devraj takes revenge by killing the cop and tries to kill his daughter Lucky (Mehreen) too. But she escapes and the cops send her to a secret place in Darjeeling to save her from Devraj.

Meanwhile, Raja (Ravi Teja) is the son of a woman police constable Ananthalakshmi (Radhika), who wants her son to join the police department. But the officials don’t agree to her request because he is a visually-impaired person.
Raja is trained in martial arts and has the uncanny ability to smell danger. The police finally agree to send him along with a team to Darjeeling to save Lucky. Incidentally, Lucky’s father had also helped Ananthalakshmi financially when Raja was a child and met with an accident. So Raja decides to save Lucky and fight against Devraj. How he faces the strong villain and saves Lucky forms the crux of the story.

This is the third film by director Anil Ravipudi, whose earlier two films were complete masala potboilers. This film also is a commercial entertainer with all the cinematic ingredients. Despite the protagonist being blind, he dances, fights and spouts massy dialogues. Anil has taken a small subject of how a visually-impaired person saves a girl from a strong villain and narrates it in an entertaining way. Interestingly, there were a few Telugu films made earlier with the protagonist playing a visually-impaired person, but those were art films. For the first time ever, Ravi Teja dons such a role with completely commercial aspects.

Raja the Great is an ordinary and predictable story, complete with action, dialogues and songs. There are several illogical and cinematic scenes, such as the blind protagonist traveling 25 km by bus, and on top of a train, to catch the villains. The other illogical thing is that the senior police officer agrees to take a visually-impaired person into his team when he offers him sweets! Though the story is predictable, the director has made a decent first half although the second half drags. And just when everyone thinks that the movie is over after a long action episode, a song appears and continues for nearly 15 minutes! But if you put all the illogical things aside, the director has come up with a typical commercial film.

When it comes to performances, it is Ravi Teja all the way. He is energetic and lively and gives a believable performance as a visually-impaired person. You can see the typical Ravi Teja kind of performance in his body language and the entertaining massy dialogues. Radhika does a decent job as his mother. Mehreen plays the female lead and she performs well and looks good. Srinivas Reddy gets a lengthy role and is seen throughout the film along with Ravi Teja, providing entertainment in a few scenes. Sampath plays a cop and does his best. Ravi Teja’s son Mahadhan makes his debut as a child artiste and is really promising. Rajendra Prasad and Prudhvi appear in a bank robbery scene which is not up to the mark. Vivan Bhathena plays the villain and is a surprise find. Tanikella Bharani does a commendable job as the villain’s father and is in a completely different avatar when compared to his earlier films.

Music by Sai Karteek is average and the background music resembles the recently released Arjun Reddy. Cinematography by Mohan Krishna is good as he has captured some beautiful locations of Darjeeling.

Raja the Great is a typical formula film that is made only for a commercial purpose. It is aimed mostly at the front-benchers and depends heavily on Ravi Teja because he is the only highlight in this predictable story.