Bangarraju review: Naga Chaitanya plays a man child, Nagarjuna his guardian angel in this sorry excuse of a movie

They say it takes a village to raise a child. But heaven and hell need to be moved before a fully-grown Bangarraju comes of age. So much so that Satyabhama kicks Bangarraju senior, who was partying with the celestial ladies, out of heavens and back to the earth to help her grandson navigate the day-to-day challenges of his life. You see, Bangarraju is still a 25-something kid, and he can’t deal with the problems of an adult.

Naga Chaitanya in Bangarraju. (Photo: PR Handout)

The first time we meet Bangarraju senior (Nagarjuna), he is playing kabaddi with celestial ladies on a court filled with flowers. He is a single player against five or six girls. Back on the earth, Bangarraju junior has gained a reputation of a skirt-chaser and rightfully so. But, unlike other womanizers, thanks to his good looks, the girls of his village don’t find him creepy at all. The women characters seem to be completely okay with him, playing footsie with other girls, while making eyes at them. For some time, we see Bangarraju with hordes of girls blindly cheering for him. It seems the whole village is devoted to caressing his ego and making him feel good at any cost. There is hardly a man or a woman who believes in the idea of self-respect.

Such films propagate the problematic idea of women as a sort of valuable goods, which is acquired by men who are wealthy, good looking and blessed. The higher the number of girls dying to be with the man, the greater his value. The film adds more layer to its problematic understanding of what are desirable characteristics of a man when all the villagers huddle up and decide to keep the young girls in their family in control because they think Bangarraju is too sexy and girls in their family don’t have enough self-control to reject the advances of a man, who is an established flirt.

And the villain of the piece, oh the horror. No, the bad guy doesn’t strike fear in our hearts, it comes from the way director establishes him. The villain performs a ritual to seek the blessing of the almighty to kill Bangarraju. He screams his wish to murder Bangarraju in front of strangers and friends, only to realise that the sinister plot was a big secret. He then has to kill his friend who obviously heard his rant.

And there is lord Yamadharma Raja and lord Indra, who are kind of biased towards Bangarraju’s family. The gods are so docile that they agree to whatever ridiculous requests Satyabhama makes to them to protect her family. And these are not just half of the film’s problems, there is the director’s over-sexualisation of women’s navels, problematic male gaze, unoriginality, lack of common sense and basic respect for logical thinking and honest storytelling.

Bangarraju makes one wonder what kind of lies some actors have to tell themselves to sign such mediocre movies? But, those lies must be more fascinating than the stories they approve of.