Dhammu (2012)

Dhammu (transl. Guts) is a 2012 Indian Telugu-language action drama film co-written and directed by Boyapati Srinu. The film stars N. T. Rama Rao Jr., Trisha, Karthika Nair, Nassar, Sampath Raj, Rahul Dev, Kishore, Suman, Brahmanandam, Ali, Bhanupriya, Kota Srinivasa Rao and Venu Thottempudi.

Dhammu was released theatrically on 27 April 2012 and received mixed to negative reviews from critics who praised cast performance and action sequences, but criticized its screenwriting, excessive violence, and double-meaning dialogues. The film was unofficially remade in Bangladeshi as Rajababu - The Power starring Shakib Khan, Apu Biswas and Bobby. The film was dubbed into Tamil titled Singamagan.

Plot

Rama Chandra is an orphan who leads a simple life along with his friend. He falls in love with Sathya, who is a rich girl. Sathya imposes a condition that Rama Chandra's family history should be important. At this very moment, Rama Chandra learns that a rich and powerful royal Suryavamsi family seeks to adopt an heir, where he seizes the chance.

Rama Chandra goes there and realizes that Suryavamsi family has a violent past and a bitter dispute with another rich and powerful royal Chandravamsi family headed by a Chandravamsi King and also realizes that thousands of people in the area are now dependent on him for their very survival. Rama Chandra also discovers that he is actually the real heir to the family and his real name is Raja Vasireddy Vijayadwaja Srisimha. It is revealed he was the biological son of the Suryavamsi family who was taken away from birth as secret to protect him from Chandravamsi forces and was renamed as Rama Chandra. Despite his hatred towards violence, Vijaya tries his best to solve the problems peacefully, but the rival gang does not give him a chance. Vexed with the violence, Vijaya returns and beats up Chandravamsi's king eldest son men before injuring the latter. His middle son later kills him. Now Vijaya is the heir of Suryavamsi family. However, when Chandravamsi's king youngest son killed Vijaya's brother-in-law when Vijaya thwarted him, a grief stricken and enraged Vijaya kills Chandravamsi's king youngest son and his men in retaliation. As Vijaya returned home, a police officer beats him up until he was stopped by Raja of Veera Durgam fort. He revealed about Vijaya true identity. Now Vijaya arrived at Chandravamsi's king house and attack Chandravamsi's king middle son and his men before he opens the Chandravamsi King's eyes by placing a sword on his middle son. Chandravamsi King realizes that his mistakes and apologizes to Vijaya and the family, thus ending the violent nature of the village.

Cast

Production

Dhammu has music scored by M. M. Keeravani. Shruti Hassan, who was originally signed to play the female lead, walked out citing date issues. Later the producers approached Kajal Aggarwal who also couldn't accommodate bulk dates for the film. The producers finalised Trisha as the first female lead. According to reports, Bhanupriya, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Venu Thottempudi and Subhalekha Sudhakar play supporting roles.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film was released on 29 March 2012 at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad. M. M. Keeravani's music label, Vel Records, and Sony Music Entertainment secured the film's audio rights. The lyrics for all the songs were written by Chandrabose.

Release

The Telugu and Tamil versions released on 27 April 2012. Dammu released on approximately 2550 screens worldwide which was a record in Tollywood.It released in approx of 140+ theatres in Karnataka which is considered to be a record by out of state movie.

Critical reception

B.V.S. Prakash of Deccan Chronicle wrote "Dhammu (Valour), as one of the Telugu films that made high on action and low on contents". Sify wrote "Boyapati uses the same formula of Tollywood action movies with good dialogues, high voltage fight sequences and wraps ups with interesting twist and NTR's charged up performance".

Radhika Rajamani of Rediff gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Director Boyapati Seenu's new film Dammu has an outdated and clichéd storyline, regressive content, and mindless and excessive violence".

Box office

Home media

The satellite and digital rights were sold to Zee Telugu and ZEE5 for ₹6.6 crore (US$690,000), the highest buy-over for any film in 2012.

Awards

Notes

References

External links

Dammu at IMDb