Ranabaali Review: A Forgettable, Tedious British-Era Story
The British characters including Arnold Vosloo speaking Telugu may also make certain scenes feel like a dubbed Hollywood film, although this is not a major issue yet dilutes the film.
Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Rashmika Mandanna, Arnold Vosloo, Easwari Rao, Vinod Sagar, Madhu, Luke McGibney, Zachary Coffin, Benedict Garrett, Edward J Marsh and others
Director: Rahul Sankrityan
Rating: 2/5 stars
No doubt, Vijay Deverakonda, who played a lover boy in films like ‘Arjun Reddy’ and ‘Kushi’, attempts a larger-than-life role in his latest release, ‘Ranabaali’. However, he chooses an outdated and done-to-death British-era story that ultimately falls flat. His look and slang are admirable, but his performance is a mixed bag. His wife, played by Rashmika Mandanna, does a very good job as a dutiful wife and delivers a couple of emotional moments.
Probably inspired by accounts of the Madras famine, director Rahul Sankrityan builds a story around British atrocities, depicting how the colonisers exploited people and forced them to work without adequate compensation. The subject might have been better suited to a documentary than a feature film, as the narrative lacks an emotional connect and fails to establish why this familiar story needs to be told in this day and age. The film relies heavily on on-screen text and emotional sequences to describe the suffering of the people, making the experience feel more instructional than immersive.
A nearly three-hour runtime need not be a problem if the story and its emotional highs hold the audience's attention. Unfortunately, ‘Ranabaali’ struggles on that front.
The film features plenty of brutal violence, and Ranabaali’s fight against the British should ideally leave us disturbed by their atrocities and make us root for him to take them down. However, the weak execution ensures that not a single action block feels truly earned. There is no strong emotional buildup leading into the action, whether in the interval block or in the sequence where Ranabaali retrieves the food seized by the British and returns it to the people.
The British characters including Arnold Vosloo speaking Telugu may also make certain scenes feel like a dubbed Hollywood film, although this is not a major issue yet dilutes the film
After the action episode in the cave, the film begins to lose its way. Almost everything that follows is predictable. To be fair to the director, it is difficult to generate freshness from a backdrop that has been explored repeatedly in cinema. The second half is weighed down by repetitive sequences, giving the impression that the narrative has stagnated rather than progressed.
Just when we think the film has come to an end, the director introduces a new chapter titled ‘Kobali’. Unfortunately, the twist in this episode lacks impact. Even the climax fails to generate excitement because of the half-hearted writing and the lack of a compelling emotional payoff.
