Review of Telugu/PAN India movie `PEDDI’

By S. Prabhakar

The much hyped and much-awaited Ram Charan’s sports emotional drama has released worldwide today in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada & Malayalam.   Peddi is a Ram Charan movie all the way, having him in every frame, and he not only carried the movie on his broad shoulders but delivered a brilliant performance.

Story writer and Director Buchi Babu, in his second movie only, showed a lot of maturity and blended a very emotional storyline of hardship faced by a daily wage workers from an unknown village near Vizayanagaram, AP and their struggle to get an identity to their village and a Railway station so that the labourers are not required to walk/climb long distance for long hours to reach town with sports - hero excelling in village Cricket, Wrestling and Para Athletes.  

Normally, directors present the hero or central characters as winners, but Buchi Babu has his own way of showing his hero as a loser and driving emotions through their trials.   In Peddi, despite his best efforts and putting his heart into it, Peddi loses in Cricket and wrestling, and in the climax, though Peddi wins the 400-meter dash for Para athletes, he refuses to accept the medal.   In his debut movie UPPENA, the director has also gone for the story of a loser.    But it is doubtful if average moviegoers who expect a masala entertainer from Ram Charan appreciate such a storyline.   Buchi Babu has also failed to maintain the same racy tempo throughout the movie, and it is a roller coaster ride of some gripping scenes and then dropping and dragging.  

Performances:   Ram Charan is the heart of the movie; he owns every frame of the movie. There is depth in emotional scenes, and a lot of physical transformation in each of the different sports: Cricket,  Wrestling and Paralympic Athletics.     One could feel the amount of training he might have undergone for Wrestling bouts and running race in climax.   I am not sure which technology was used, but he looked so natural and convincing in the running race with one leg and another artificial limb.    He is excellent in action scenes and dances, with Chikri Chikri becoming a range long ago.  Peddi will be another landmark movie in his career and can be put at par with Magadheera, Rangasthalam and RRR.  I would be surprised if he does not win some prestigious awards for his performance in Peddi.

Apart from Ram Charan, seasoned Telugu actor Jagapati Babu performed very well in a short but powerful and emotional central character.  Kannada veteran actor Shiv Rajkumar was good as a wrestling coach.    Most of the other large assembly of actors from different languages are underutilised and wasted.  

Jahnvi Kapoor had such an insignificant role that in a 3-hour movie, she is there in 5 scenes (including one song, which she messed up and looked out of place alongside Ram Charan and Shruti Hassan).  You knock off her role in its entirety, it would not have made any difference to the movie.

Bomman Irani, Divyendu (of Mirjapur fame), Ravi Kishan, Rao Ramesh, Bengali actor, Rajatava Dutta, all have very small screen time to make any impact.  

Story, Screenplay, & Direction: Buchi Babu has shown a lot of courage to pick up such a subject when he got to direct a top star like Ram Charan in only his second movie.   He extracted the best out of Ram Charan and Jagapati Babu and fell short as far as other actors are concerned.     The training routine of Ram Charan as Wrestler has been badly copied from the over 4 decades cult classic 36 Chambers of Shaolin;  he should have gone for better training drills to make it more attractive.   He should have avoided showing Peddi smoking while playing cricket and even while wrestling.   At any level of sport, smoking is not permitted and such scenes looked silly in an otherwise intense movie.  The screenplay could have been a bit tighter.  

Action choreography: Sham Kaushal and Maibam Nabakanta Meitei did a brilliant job and all action scenes, especially wrestling bouts, have come off very well.   It looks like they have given very good training to Ram Charan in wrestling.

Music:  After a long gap A R Rehman came up with 3 catchy tunes and the background score too is good.

Choreography: Jani Master choreographed some fast beat numbers, and RC did a great job, especially in Chikri Chkiri, Rai Rai Rara and Hellallaloo.

Cinematography:  R Rathnavelu did a splendid job in capturing the lush green locales and also in action scenes.  

Recommendation: It will be a feast for Ram Charan Fans and a discerning audience who like emotional and serious stuff.  As far as Box office performance is concerned, it should be a major hit of this year in Telugu, but I doubt its reach to PAN India audience and joining 1000 cr club.   It may lose steam at around 500-600 cr.

I give 4/5, 0.5 extra for Ramcharan's brilliant performance.

 

S. Prabhakar

4.6.2026