Rao Bahadur review: A strange, stubborn film that asks what we inherit besides property

It takes a while to settle into Ramappa’s world, his mansion Bhuvanalayam, the distinctive dialect and the film’s attempt at magical realism. The narrative feels slow and occasionally confusing in this stretch. However, Rao Bahadur is not about a royal family at all. At its core, it is about the prejudices we inherit. Through humour, satire and philosophy, the film takes aim at society’s obsession with skin colour, bloodline and caste. Set between 1968 and 1991, it delivers a thought-provoking commentary on the social conditioning that still shapes Indian society, and it does this while keeping its humour intact. The film delivers these ideas without turning preachy, and the humour keeps things engaging even when the themes turn serious.

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Whatever you make of the storytelling, the lead performance is not up for debate. To play the aging aristocrat, Satyadev sat through five hours of prosthetic makeup every day across a rigorous 85-day shoot. The commitment translates on screen. His performance combines arrogance, vulnerability, humour and emotional conflict in equal measure, and it is genuinely difficult to imagine another contemporary Telugu actor pulling off a character this layered.

The supporting cast is small by design. The film runs on a very limited set of characters, with only a handful of roles driving the entire narrative

Deepa Thomas is well cast as Renuka, and Vikas Muppala makes an impression as Achari, a character that grows in importance as the story moves forward.

Watch Rao Bahadur closely and you notice it is built less like a movie and more like a piece of theatre. Even the performances have a theatrical quality. Satyadev’s dialect, his body language under heavy prosthetics, and the long dialogue exchanges all carry the rhythm of a play, where actors hold a scene through voice and presence instead of cuts and camera tricks. This is a risk in a market raised on fast screenplays, and it explains why the first half tests so many viewers. But it is also the film’s identity. Director Venkatesh Maha is essentially staging a chamber drama for the big screen, and if you accept those terms, the confined setting stops feeling like a limitation and starts feeling like the point. The walls of the mansion mirror the walls inside Ramappa’s head.

Maha broke through in 2018 with C/o Kancharapalem, a small film with non-actors that became one of the most loved Telugu indies of its decade. Rao Bahadur is a deliberate turn away from that style. The director spent five years developing the script, aiming to make what he calls a Telugu story made for the world, moving from his earlier naturalistic approach toward heightened visual layers and intricate detailing. The film’s strength is its strange, beautiful and intensely dramatic screenplay, and credit to Maha for building a stunning world that Satyadev takes over completely.

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On the technical front, Kartik Parmar’s cinematography leans on atmospheric lighting and unusual colour palettes, with production design by Rohan Singh, and Smaran Sai’s score being the biggest assets for the film. The period detailing gives the film the look and feel of a well-mounted costume drama.

Rao Bahadur is too slow to start, too long and too strange for a casual weekend watch. It is also one of the most original things Telugu cinema has attempted in years, anchored by an actor giving everything to a role nobody else would have taken. Films like this do not come along often, and they rarely get a superstar’s backing when they do. If you have ever complained that Tollywood plays it safe, this is your chance to put your money where your opinion is.

Rao Bahadur movie cast: Satyadev, Vikas Muppala, Deepa Thomas, Bala Parasar, Anand Bharathi, Pranay Vaka, Kunal Kaushik, Master Kiran
Rao Bahadur movie director: Venkatesh Maha
Rao Bahadur movie rating: 3 stars