Ranabaali Review: Big Ambition, Overstuffed Telugu Epic

Ranabaali, Vijay Deverakonda's period action drama, opened on Oct. 16 in Telugu with dubbed versions in Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam. Reviews describe a film with real craft and a story worth telling, and a long, crowded second half. [Bollywood.com](http://Bollywood.com)'s review roundup and the outlets we read put ratings between roughly 2 and 3.5 out of 5.

The film

Director Rahul Sankrityan sets the story in Rayalaseema in the late 1870s, during the Great Madras Famine of 1876 to 1878. The Hindu's Sangeetha Devi Dundoo says the title character is a fictional chieftain inspired by three palegars, and that the writer, Pramod Tammineni, uses the oral tradition of Burra Katha to tell the story with a dose of myth. The cast includes Vijay Deverakonda, Rashmika Mandanna and Arnold Vosloo, who plays a British commissioner. The runtime in The Hindu's review is 178 minutes, which matches the 2 hours 58 minutes other outlets list.

What works

The Hindu praises the period detail. It says the colour tones are vivid yet earthy, sometimes recalling Lagaan, and credits the cinematographers Jishnu Bhattacharya and Nirav Shah, the production designer Shivam Rao and the costume designer Archana Rao. It says the story is solid until the interval, and that the portion in which Jayamma, played by Rashmika Mandanna, tames her new husband and the two find love is among the film's most engaging.

Of the leads, The Hindu says the film is Vijay Deverakonda's, with him trying hard to be a saviour, but that Rashmika brings warmth to the story and plays both innocence and steel without missing a beat. It also says Deverakonda sheds his urban image for a tanned, rugged look and that it takes time to get used to him in this avatar. The composers Ajay-Atul are credited with mellowing an overpowering score so the narrative can breathe.

What does not

The criticism is consistent across the reviews we read. The Hindu says the film becomes overstuffed, that some chapter transitions are not smooth, and that the last hour struggles to balance history, devotion and folk legend. It says some portions are exhausting and border on what it calls torture porn, and it calls the treatment of a pregnant woman a turn-off. It adds that the film's team has said the violence was toned down after test screenings.

The Hindustan Times headline describes the film as the faction-film genre meeting colonial trauma. The Videshi's headline calls it a sincere famine epic that wins respect but tests patience. The roundup synthesis we saw faults excessive violence, repetitive storytelling, weak emotional depth and the long runtime.

The box office so far

Trade figures are early. A tracker table on baapofmovies lists Ranabaali at Rs 16.55 crore net in India and Rs 26.25 crore worldwide after its opening days, as of Oct. 18. Another report, from IndiaX24, put the first day at about Rs 3.7 to 3.9 crore net in a Telugu-led release. These two figures do not describe the same period and we cannot reconcile them. The Dishalu release guide reported pre-sales of about Rs 6.48 crore gross, citing [india.com](http://india.com) and trade data.

Why it matters

The film arrived a day after Jailer 2 and in the same festival window, so comparisons with Rajinikanth's film are everywhere. The Hindu's review treats the two as separate propositions, and judges Ranabaali on its own terms: a story that needed to be told, which could have been sharper and tauter.

What we could not confirm

We could not confirm the first-day figure from the makers, only from trackers, which differ. We read The Hindu in full and the others in part. We did not verify the [Bollywood.com](http://Bollywood.com) rating list item by item, so the 2 to 3.5 range is a summary of what the roundup page and outlets reported. We have not seen the film.

Sources

*Cover photo: Sriram Kasyap Meduri, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vijay_Deverakonda_at_Rowdy_Sundowner_Party_2020.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vijay_Deverakonda_at_Rowdy_Sundowner_Party_2020.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*