This Friday is a busy with a couple of south Indian movie releases as well, which certainly include the film Khaidi No. 150. It is an Indian Telugu-language action drama movie, which is directed by V. V. Vinayak, and written by AR Murugadoss. The film has Chiranjeevi and Kajal Aggarwal in the pivotal roles and marks as the comeback of the former to the world of acting after 10 long years in his 150th film.  The film has Tarun Arora, Brahmanandam, Posani Krishna Murali, Ali and Prudhviraj in the supporting roles. The film happens to be a remake of the Tamil film Kaththi. The principal photography of the Telugu film commenced in June 2016 in Hyderabad, while the film is produced by Manjunatha B S under the banner of Konidela Production Company. Now, let’s dig in deep to get the crux of the film as under:
Plot
Kaththi Sreenu played by Chiranjeevi is a small-time thief who often helps the police to catch an escaped prisoner even as he plans his own. One day he runs away from the prison, only to get caught up in a crime scene which involves his doppelganger Shiv Shankar Varaprasad also known as Shankar (Yes that’s Chiru 2 and yes that’s his real name in life). Chiru 1 then switches his identity with Chiru 2 and a quick flashback forces him to assume the latter’s character to fight corruption. So, what really happens the next is interesting to catch.
Review
The actor Chiranjeevi has the knack of choosing social theme based movies very wisely regardless to the plot goes. His idea to choose Tamil script Kaththi of Murugadoss has simply served the same purpose in manifold ways. In this film one may find corruption as the skeleton, while the stories played on different issues plaguing the society. But the Khaidi No 150 is seen walking a few miles ahead to bring Marx’s “Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat” conflict on the silver screen. On the other side, one can see Chiru 2 to be a Communist by ideology who is only seen fighting the corporate establishment. Thus one can find a Left narrative overflowing in the movie. As you check it further, the overarching role of Chiru simply makes the most of the script to project his return, which the actor has done very much naturally. But it’s hard to tell whether he chose the crucial issue like farmer suicide that is plaguing the nation and the Telugu states to rebuild his political platform or if it was a script he randomly liked. Of course, one can find some minor misses as well but the first half is tad slow and the post-interval part is where the actual plot exists, which is rushed. The narrative gets a bit predictable too.
Performances
Talking about the performances, Chiru is seen packing enough of punches in his dialogues. It simply make the narrative spike up in different places evoking some cheering from the crowds and making the plot a mild tearjerker. The comeback film for the actor has made his character(s)  just remain as dots in the storyline. Kajal on the other side has not much screen space in the film and thus can be called as the wasted one in the film. Though Chiru has a couple of lines and facts thrown at the audience, the humor track, embedded with stalwarts like Brahmanandam and Ali, couldn’t conjure that gut-hurting laughter.
Music, direction and other stuff
The DSP songs do pump up the narrative but these come along with a slight disappointment as the dancer Chiru of Indra and Tagore is quite not in shape for a new step. There is modified Veena step and a buckle lift simply step with his son, Ram Charan Teja, who then makes a mere 30 second cameo in a song, but the same agility and lithe is missing. The direction though seems par in terms of giving a film with incredible performance of the actor. The other elements like editing, photography and other technical stuff remained par that helped the film to gain a better entertainment value for sure.
Khilari No 150
With this film Khiladi No 150 many are seen celebrating the comeback of the actor Chiranjeevi over the silver screen at least after the ten long years. The film might be lagging behind in terms of story and other things but his presence has a bigger aura than any other that end up attracting the audience far and wide.
Rating – 3.5
