Naaga (2003)

Release Date: 10th Jan 2003
Rating: ★★✰✰✰Director: Suresh
Producer: A. M. Ratnam
Music Director: Vidyasagar
Starring: NTR, Sadha, Jennifer, Raghuvaran
Genre: Action

Naaga (2003) Full Movie Review:

Story:

Nagaraju (NTR) is a law student and the son of a bantroth (Raghuvaran) – the white dressed man who stands beside judge in this Naaga Movie. Bantroth’s ambition in life is to see his son Naaga as a truthful and noble lawyer serving the society. In that process, he spends a lot of money on Naaga though he could not financially afford such a costly education. Chandra Sekhara Naidu (Nazar) is the CM of the state. The Home Minister (Rajan P Dev) is looking for an opportunity to destabilize CM. The HM has an illegitimate affair with a wanton woman under the guise of social worker called Mandaram (Shakeela). Mandaram has an insatiable thirst for the power. She pressurizes HM to make her an MLA when an assembly position falls vacant. When CM refuses to give a ticket to Mandaram, the HM join hands with an opposition leader Potti Kasaiah (Paruchuri Gopala Krishna) and launches Mandaram as an independent candidate. In one of such political rally campaigns, the goons happen to enter the house of Naaga due to some petty quarrel. In the process, they bruise Naaga’s father and sister. In a fit of anger, Naaga beats those guys black and blue. Those guys file a case on Naaga for injuring them.

Naaga impresses one and all in the court by saying how the political campaigns and street rallies are affecting the privacy and comfort of common citizens. He also suggests that the politicians should use electronic media for campaign instead of wasting money by trying to influence voters with unfair means. His argument becomes the talk of the town and the headlines in various newspapers. The CM also gets impressed with Naaga. All the student’s unions in AP join hands with Naaga to establish youth student organizations under one roof in the leadership of Naaga. Naaga campaigns for the ruling party candidate and contributes his part in the victory. An impressed CM appoints Naaga as the youth leader of his ruling party. The opposition party uses the current drought situation in the state as the weapon to destabilize the government. As a reply to this, CM starts fast-unto-death for Central Government’s intervention in this water issue. Due to some miscommunication, Naaga starts creating law and order problem to make sure that CM stops his fast-unto-death and rule the state again. Father of Naaga dies in the process.

The rest of the story is all about how Naaga overcame all the hurdles and emerge unscathed as a winner.

Performance:

This movie is made for NTR and hence all the frames and scenes in the film revolve around NTR. He did his best in dances and histrionics. His expressions in ferocious and pathos scenes are effortless. He is at home with his characterization and did full justice as an actor for his role. His dances are also pretty entertaining. However, the director created confusion in the characterization of NTR by infusing too much of aggression in seemingly an underplayed political film. Sada, who stole the hearts of youth with her village belle get up in Jayam, has disappointed the crowds with this film. Her role is very short and she did not suit the role well. Jennifer is just a prop in this film for a couple of songs and a couple of scenes. Her character is not at all useful for the story. Raghuvaran played the role of Bantroth and NTR’s father. Raghuvaran, who is seen as a rich father or sophisticated villain so far has done a character of a middle class, honest and poor father. His sophistication and body language do not suit for such humble middle-class characters though he gave his best shot.

Technical Aspects:

Story by Surya Movies is a serious one with no scope for entertainment. There are so many unrealistic points in this movie, which are very hard to conceive and believe. A better narration and interesting screenplay could have plugged these holes. Too much usage of violence and politics has taken the flavor of entertainment out of the film. Screenplay by AM Ratnam needs clarity. But he overplayed the character of NTR. He tried the pattern of Shankar’s ‘Oke Okkadu’ for this film. But Shankar handled that film well by underplaying the character of Arjun most of the times and got the mass hero in Arjun out for a very few scene where it was essential. In an attempt to write a screenplay that is fundamentally similar to that of ‘Oke Okkadu’, AM Ratnam ignored the underplay angle and tried to boost up the image of NTR in mass style from the first frame to the last frame. Hence the mismatch of the theme of the film and treatment of hero has made the screenplay look pretty mediocre in the first half and confused the crowds in the second half. DK Suresh direction is average. He failed to provide nativity touch and in few sentimental scenes, we feel like we are watching a Tamil dubbed film.

Music:

Music by Deva and Vidya Sagar has mass orientation. The background music is OK. There is no smoothness in background music.

ANALYSIS:

AM Ratnam, who always preferred hero to be the part of the story has taken U turn and made this film by making the story a part of the hero. In an attempt to create a subject that caters to the masses, he gave too much preference to the unwanted violence and excessive stunts. There by he had nothing offer to the female audiences except for few sentimental scenes that have the scent of Tamil. A hero can only be as powerful as villain. If the hero is a mass hero, the director needs to create an equally powerful and dreadsome villain. If the hero is a strategic hero, the director needs to create such scenes where the tacit tactics of hero gets elevated (like those in Shankar films like Gentleman, Bharateeyudu and Oke Okkadu). By having a villain who looks absolutely weak and projecting a hero who is unbelievably heroic, the director could not balance the good and evil equation in the film. The first half of this film is decent and sensible to certain extent. But the story in second half meanders aimlessly and bores you to certain extent. The main asset of the film is NTR and one may watch this film once for NTR.

Review Credits: idelbrain