Rakshana Review

While it certainly attracts attention to you, it really can't be a nice feeling to have menacing-looking gun-toting bodyguards all around you. Especially if they are not your bodyguards. Kota Brahmanandam, a central minister who is about to become CM of AP, has an even worse experience. His own bodyguard shoots him, and in the gonads. Wrong place at any time. And only one thing can be worse than that - basing a whole film around that theme. I mean, think about it - if you got shot in the nuts, would you want a movie made about it?

Anyway, Kota is a cabinet minister with a prestigious portfolio, a large following and two testicles. Now we at fullhyd.com don't introduce every man we know to others like this, since it is not considered encouraging etiquette, since it is not relevant to our line of business, and mainly since it can be disastrous for someone's reputation if we forget to say it sometime. But in this context we needed to say it since, ahem, the script demands it.

Anyway, Kota gets kidnapped by a bunch of terrorists who want an accomplice of theirs released from Tihar Jail since, well, he's lodged in Tihar Jail. The government gets the Army to put its best NSG commandos on the mission, led by the ace Bose (Sriram), and they successfully pull it off. Not releasing the accomplice from Tihar Jail, but rescuing Kota.

Kota is extremely grateful to Bose, and soon gets shot in the wrong place by him. Okay, maybe that was cutting it too short - we and our stupid word limits. Kota actually gets assigned Z-category personal security led by Bose to protect him from further attempts. One day when Kota is trying to rape Charulatha (Sneha), Bose objects, and in the ensuing blitz, shoots Kota in the by-now famous place.

Apparently you cannot do this under Indian law, and Bose gets booted out from service. He returns to his hometown, and tries to forget Kota and all the things that remind him of him, including news reports with the words "Ground Zero" in them (hee hee haw haw!!!).

Now it's far easier for him to forget what happened than for Kota, since Kota has to necessarily look at The Spot every day, while for Bose it is only optional. So Kota swears revenge.

Charu of course runs into Bose again, and they fall in love. In the meantime, Bose is also single-handedly rubbing out all the platoons of goons that Kota is sending after his life, forgetting that they are just doing their job. Then Kota gets Bose's dad. The rest of the film is about how it ends.

The primary problem with Rakshana is a complete lack of inspiration in sculpting the emotional backbone, considering how much of the film depends on it. The chemistry between the lead actors is begging for clemency, and the family moments substitute screen-time for creativity.

These then reduce this to a bone and steel railroad yard rendition, with the emasculation in originality dogging it even there - Bose is nothing short of a superhero, dogding gazillions of bullets at uncontrite ranges, with the stunt directors deciding that commando training underwrites the impossible.

Sneha is good, and the performances are in general fine. The film does keep the adrenaline rush for a bit, and some scenes and dialogues are good - especially the pre-interval face-off with Shivamani. Worth a watch if there's nothing better. Incidentally, this is a Tamil-dubbed flick.