Rating: 5/10 (Masala Fare)

Cast: Nagarjuna, Anushka, Priyamani, Brahmanandham, Pradeep Rawat, Dev Gill, Tanikella Bharani, Satya Prakash, Sushant Singh, Shravan, Supreet, Kota, Dharmavarupu, "Adurs" Raghu, Prudhvi, Master Bharath

Story-Screenplay-Dialogues-Direction: Veeru Potla

Producer: D Siva Prasad Reddy

Banner: Kamakshi Movies

Plot: A young man named Satya (Nagarjuna) comes from Kadapa to Hyderabad on a mission. What that mission is what Ragada is about.

Performances: Nagarjuna is excellent as Satya and looks strikingly handsome even at 51. His looks, mannerisms, body language, and dialogue delivery are all superb.

Anushka and Priyamani are good and sensuous as the heroines and provide the needed glamour.

Brahmandham is hilarious in his role as Bhramam who lusts for Anuskha.

There are about 8 villains in the film and none of them make an impact except Kota Srinivas Rao. Dharmavarupu and Master Bharath are entertaining as a fake Brahmin family.

Direction: Veeru Potla has chosen the regular revenge drama we have seen umpteen times with Balakrishna films but opts for a short flashback which takes baout 20 minutes. He seems to have mastered the commercial template of 6 songs, 5 fights, and comedy in between and somehow makes the film work. Ragada isn't necessarily a good film but it's not terrible either. Some novelty in the story would have done wonders to the film but the twists in the 2nd half are good. Overall, it's an average job from the director.

Technicalities: Music and BGM by Thaman is fabulous. All the songs are well shot on the screen and are catchy to listen to. Cinematography by Sarvesh Murari is phenomenal. The film is stylishly shot and all the visuals look rich and grand. Dialogues by Veeru Potla are entertaining. Art by AS Prakash is superb as usual. Editing by Marthand K Venkatesh is good as the film has a crisp runtime of about 2hrs and 20 minutes. Production Values by Kamakshi Movies are incredible. The entire film looks grand.

Positives:

+ Nagarjuna

+ Heroines Glamour

Negatives:

- Story

- Direction

- Too many villains

Analysis and Verdict: Let me tell you a story. We have a hero who enters a town and is assumed to be a normal man. Slowly but surely, he starts eliminating or threatening people in this new town when no one is around him. He then acts cool in front of people and makes everyone believe he is a saint.

In his free time, he kills bad people. Soon, his girlfriend or the heroine finds out there's more than meets the eye to her boyfriend and he came to this town with a purpose. After a massive interval fight and big big dialogues about vamsham, dhairyam, dammu, we have an interval bang.

After the interval bang, we get to know that the hero is actualy someone else, either a revered figure from a village in somewhere in India or he's actually an extremely feared/powerful/what ever you want to call it. To sum it up, he's one bigshot who can take on anybody and wants revenge for a misfortune that happened to him or his family. In all that writing, you have the story of Ragada. 15 minutes into the film, you can guess the entire story.

I seriously question how much longer our makers will use this formula and the fact that Balakrishna has milked this story for so long and still continues to do so blows my mind. If you would like to watch the story mentioned above for probably the zillionth time, by all means watch Ragada. In one word, the film is outdated but is saved by Nagarjuna's performance and the comedy. The film has about 9 fights from start to finish becuase the movie has so many dman villains. However, the film moves quickly so you never feel bored. I don't think I can write anymore about the film so here's the verdict.

Overall, Ragada is a pakka routine commercial masala film that has a age old story with no novelty. Whether you want to watch the same story for the millionth time or look for something new, the choice is yours. Skipping it also will do you no harm.