Peddanna Review

What's Behind

Rajinikanth's upcoming film Annathe hit the screens in Telugu as Peddanna. The film directed by Siruttai Shiva released as a Diwali special. Let us see what Rajinikanth offered as Peddanna.

Story Review

Veeranna (Rajinikanth) is hailed as Peddana in Rajole and surrounding areas. He loves his sister Kanaka Mahalakshmi (Keerthi Suresh) immensely and as he decides to get her married, his maradallu Maheswari (Meena), Rajeswari (Khushboo) compete to get her married to their sons. In between Veeranna gets attracted to a lawyer Parvatamma (Nayanatara). Veeranna after repeated attempts and after finding out that Kanakam is ok with the alliance, fixes a match with Devraj (Prakash Raj)'s brother. However, on the day of marriage Veeranna finds out a shocking truth, and the story shifts to Kolkota.

Why does the story shift to Kolkota and what is the shocking truth and how Manoj Parikkar (Abhimanyu Singh) and Uddav Parikar (Jagapathi Babu) are connected to it, form the Peddana plot.

Artists, Technicians Review

Director Shiva is known for his high octane mass action entertainers. However, he used to ensure that the narration is balanced perfectly with emotions, action, and sentiment. But in trying to elevate the heroism of Rajinikanth loading the entire film with action scenes, he completely ignored the other aspects and this impacted the film in a big manner. The film right from the beginning is loaded with artificial elements and this increases torture to the viewers. The less is said about the comedy the better it is as Shiva turned all the characters into comedy pieces. He tried to show villains as the most dreaded ones but they turned out to be clowns.

Rajinikanth as usual stole the show. He tried his best to power the weak story with his energetic performance. His mannerisms, dialogues is a treat to watch. However at times, one could easily find out that his movements are becoming slow and age is fast catching up.

Nayanatara as the lawyer and the female lead performed in a dignified manner. She looked gorgeous on screen. Keerthi Suresh as Rajinikanth's sister played an important role. She looked good and though the dialogues are pretty ordinary, they are loud as usual highlighting the Tamil essence. Meena and Khushboo played the old and outdated roles full of Tamil flavor and their antics tested the patience of the viewers.

Jagapathi Babu sported a menacing look. Except for that, there is nothing in his role. However, his look is becoming typecast and at times looked odd. Abhimanyu Singh and Prakash Raj played roles that are monotonous and routine for them. There are many comedians but none of them failed to click.

Much to the disappointment of the viewers, D.Imman who won the national award came with forgettable tunes. His background music is a little better. He elevated the scenes in the action sequences with his BGM. Vetri's cinematography is in sync with the action entertainer. The editing of Ruben turned out to be a disappointment. But had he sharpened the editing scissors, there wouldn't have been a story.

Advantages

Rajinikanth

Disadvantages

Story, Screenplay, Direction

Outdated and Tamil melodrama

Illogical action scenes

Predictable narration

Rating Analysis

When Siruttai Shiva teamed with Rajinikanth, many expected an action thriller that will surprise movie lovers. However, viewers got a huge disappointment as he came with an outdated action family entertainer. In order to score a hit during Diwali festival time, he loaded the film full of 80s family elements and sentiments testing the patience of the movie lovers. Shiva came with a story with such overconfidence that people will watch anything from him.  Considering all these points, CJ goes with a 1.75 rating for Peddanna.