Seasoned star Balakrishna seems to be in no mood to give up his stardom and has garnered Rs 45-odd crores for his latest release ‘Bhagavanth Kesari’ and surpassed the collections of Ravi Teja starrer “Tiger Nageswara Rao’ this Dasara. “Balakrishna has emerged the winner of this Dasara festival since his action drama has garnered over Rs 45 crores in six days and still counting. Even yesterday, Balakrishna’s film registered housefull shows in Vijayawada and other big centres. Apparently, he outwits his rival Ravi Teja at the box office since ‘Tiger Nageswara Rao’ managed to collect Rs 23 crores and is slowly losing steam. It has to garner another Rs 10-plus crore to breakeven in two Telugu states,” says a distributor.
He claims that Balakrishna has attracted female and family audiences during this festival more than Ravi Teja since his film talked about ‘girl safety’. "Balakrishna lambasting people for calling women a weaker sex and also his lecture on good and bad touch and urging school girls to inform their mother, if they are inappropriately touched by strangers as well as their close kin. His relationship with his daughter-like girl Sreeleela turned action fim into message-centric film,” he adds.
Ravi Teja tries to salvage a poorly-etched script and puts in a good performance as head of the fiery gang. Blame it on weak narration by director Vamsee, who relies on massive action blocks over story and drags the film without any reason. However, producer Abishek Agarwal spent lavishly on the story of a robber-turned-good samaritan and aggressively promoted the film. But the semi-fictional story failed to strike a chord with the masses.
“Director showcases Ravi Teja as a womaniser at the beginning itself so his subsequent love story with Nupur Sanon doesn't really take off. Besides glorifying a thief in the 1970s into a larger-than-role hero also failed to impress Ravi Teja fans and audience alike. The collections are dipping and it has a long way to recover another Rs 10 to 12 crore to break even,” he concludes.
