Story

Ram (Shaam) and Lakshman a.k.a Lucky (Allu Arjun) are brothers. Ram is a sincere guy who grows up to become an honest cop. Lucky is a happy-go-lucky guy who enjoys life. Ram and Lucky have a tom and jerry kind of fight going on. Siva Reddy (Ravi Kishan) is a factionist who wants to become a politician. Ram gathers evidence against Siva Reddy and Lucky unintentionally intercepts them. The rest of the story is all about the race between Lucky and Siva Reddy.

Artists Performance

Allu Arjun: Allu Arjun comes up with a fabulous performance as a racy youngster, chivalrous boyfriend and a family man. He has changed dialogue modulation and its excellent. His mannerisms and the way he says ‘daevudaa’ is cute. His dances are superb and his performance in action sequences is extraordinary. He matched the comedy timing of Brahmanandam in combination scenes. This film has given him excellent scope to give an allround performance.

Others: Shruti Haasan plays the role of an unemotional and unresponsive girl who is transformed to a normal one. She is pretty good. Shaam is extremely fit as a cop and executed his role with finesse. Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishan played the role of main villain. He is good, but his characterization is eccentric. Prakash Raj plays a comical role with limited screen time. Posani Kishna Murali comes up with another entertaining performance. Brahmanandam is extremely good as ‘Kill Bill Pandey’ - a special cop. His entrance and screen presence creates a roller coaster ride of entertainment. Saloni plays love interest of Shaam. Ali does the role of fake doctor effectively again after Kick film. Jaya Prakash Reddy is good as chief cop. MS Narayana plays a delightful role in the first half.

Technical departments

Story - screenplay - direction: The basic story is about two brothers who fight with each other realizing the brotherhood when pitted against a baddie. The writer has added all possible commercial angles to the story. The screenplay is good in the second half. All characterizations in the film are good except for that of villain which is highly eccentric. Director Surender Reddy has made sure that he didn’t miss popular commercial elements in the movie, at the same time his technical standards are in tact. There are ups and lows in the narration, but he has made sure that he ended the film on a high note. It’s a good comeback for Surender Reddy.

Other departments: Cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa is of top notch quality. Good color grading and nice visual effects added glitz to the visuals. Songs scored by SS Thaman are alright. But the background score in second half is very good (especially Allu Arjun’s bike entrance in a new avatar towards climax). Cinema Choopista is my favorite song. On the visuals front, I liked Boochade and Down Down. Picturization and art direction for these two songs is excellent. The placement of first two songs in second half is not good. But the title track towards climax is excellently shot. Art direction by Narayana Reddy deserves a special mention. Dialogues by Deepak Raj - Vikram Siri are very good and mostly entertaining. All action sequences are stylishly choreographed by Ram - Laxman. Editing by Gowtam Raju is fine. Production values by Nallamalupu Srinivas (Bujji) and Dr. Venkateswara Rao are of high standards.

Analysis

Initial half of the first half is entertaining. Interval fight is pretty heavy. Second half is neatly done. The last 20 minutes of the film which features Brahmanandam gives a high. Plus points of the movie are Allu Arjun, Brahmanandam, Cinematography, second half screenplay, all round orientation and production values. On the flip side, eccentric villain characterization and uneven tempo of the film should have been taken care of. On a whole, Race Gurram with it’s allround commercial elements should do well at box office! And watch out for Brahmi as ‘kill bill pandey’!