Shekhar Kammula's Leader - Review

Languare: Telugu
Genre: Political drama
Release date: February 19th 2010

Shekhar Kammula’s (SK) Leader is a good movie with a fresh story but is not inspiring enough and couldn’t fully stand to its name. Debutant actor Daggubati Rana has given a splendid performance and aptly did justice to his role. Rana should be commended for having taken a different route for a debut movie instead of the usual love story path usually taken by many of the star kids which is a safe bet given a few melodious numbers and the normal love story. SK’s direction as expected was just superb. What disappointed me is the way he handled the story. He needs to be appreciated for having built the story based on Congress party’s rule in Andhra Pradesh which especially is related to the late Chief Minister YS Raja Sekhar Reddy and the attempt by his son Jagan and his supporters to make him the next CM after his sudden demise without inviting any trouble from the party. The entire first half is spent in how Arjun (Rana) becomes the CM after he is inspired by his mother (Suhasini) to give a hope to the people and not to deceive them like his father (Suman) who gets killed in a road mishap. First half is really interesting till he becomes the CM. The second half is mostly devoted as to how he is protecting his CMship from his cousin (Subbaraju) mainly to fulfill his ambition of collecting 100,000 crores of rupees from corrupt politicians and bureaucrats for the welfare of the people. The entire movie revolves around this goal. Though SK has brilliantly shown to what extent corruption is rampant among the politicians and how the deals are made to achieve their mean goals he should have also focused on the other developmental steps taken by an honest CM to give a new life to the people.
The female lead introduced in the first part didn’t have much to offer towards the story and was not necessary at all. However the other female lead who was introduced in the 2nd part is pretty and had some good role but in the 2nd part a good portion was wasted in showing the love story. Instead, this could have been cut short and he should have focused more on the main story. What was shown in the last half an hour should have been elaborated. Leader lacks the powerful speeches. In the last song ‘maa Telugu talli kee’ he summarized the qualities of a good leader but the story would have been further more interesting if his leadership qualities were shown using some excellent speeches and well penned dialogues. The dialogue ‘naaku dammu vundhi’ followed by few excellent lines to change the society and give the people a better life was the only inspiring dialogue which we get to listen in the last half an hour although there are few excellent dialogues in the first half.
Leader in a way can be considered as an extension of Sumanth’s dreams in the movie Godavari which is also directed by SK. On comparing Leader with Sankar’s 2001 blockbuster Oke Okkadu Leader doesn’t come any way close to Shankar’s Oke Okkadu which is a masterpiece and I would say that both Shankar and actor Arjun did a brilliant job in the movie to show how a leader should be and more so how a CM should be.
Micky J Meyers’ music is melodious and has some good numbers to hum though the background music reminds you very much of his music from Happy Days.
Performances by other supporting actors like Suhashini, Kota Srinivas Rao, Subbaraju, Harsha Vardhan are good.
To summarize Leader is a good movie to watch once or twice but not a superb movie that would create a long lasting impact in the minds of people.