Review : Rebels of Thupakulagudem – Lacks proper emotions

A small film named Rebels of Thupakulagudem has hit the screens today. As many as fifty actors and technicians are getting introduced through this flick. Let’s see how it is.

Story:

Central Home Minister plans to eradicate the Naxalite system in India. Accordingly, a plan named surrender parade is devised. As per it, the government requires 100 innocents who should surrender themselves as Maoists and who, in return, are offered Police jobs and a lump sum. Rajanna (Praveen Kandela), the prominent and influential person in Thupakulagudem, is given the responsibility of accomplishing it, and he directs Kumar (Shrikant Rathod) to do the job. Did Kumar succeed in doing so? How did the lives of Thupakulagudem’s residents get affected due to this? The main film has the answers.

Plus Points:

Praveen Kandela, as Rajanna, did a good job in the film. His body language, dialogue delivery, and screen presence were nice. Though his screen time was limited, his performance was impactful. ShivaRam as Shivanna was effective. He played the Naxalite character with conviction.

Shrikant Rathod and Jaiyetri Makana did well in their respective roles. Jaiyetri Makana was apt in the given role, and she got the Telangana dialect right. Shrikant did a compelling job as a village guy, and he emoted quite well. The first half of the film is watchable to an extent due to a few fun moments. A couple of songs were good on screen.

Minus Points:

The screenplay is pretty weak in this Naxal-based drama. There is no proper flow in the narrative, and it seems some random scenes are knitted together. The movie heads in a clueless way for the most part. Especially the second half doesn’t have any engaging moments and is prolonged for no reason.

Some comedy portions were placed in the latter part to make up for the dull narrative, but one can still feel that nothing important is happening as far as the story is concerned. The emotions are majorly missing, which should have been highlighted. To root for a character, solid emotional scenes are pretty much required, but sadly, there are none in the film.

The film’s core point is decent, but it is not touched upon except in the climax scenes. Neither the Naxal track nor the fun portions succeed in entertaining. The patience testing run time is one more huge drawback making the viewers feel exhausted.

Technical Aspects:

Mani Sharma’s composition was good. The cinematography by Sreekanth Arpula is decent. The production values are just about okay. Director Jaideep Vishnu also handled the editing. Close to 15-20 minutes of the film could have been easily chopped off.

The screenplay completely went for a toss. The film’s story is established initially in a decent manner, but later it is sidetracked wholly, and we get to see many unwanted scenes. There is a considerable amount of lag in the movie. As the movie is based on true events, more effort was required in writing to make the film an engaging one.

Verdict:

On the whole, Rebels of Thupakulagudem is a tiresome film that fails to engage. The movie mainly suffers from bland writing, lack of emotional depth, and a lengthy run time. Hence it ends up as a disappointing watch this weekend.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.25/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

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