In his review of Peddi, THR India critic Kairam Vaashi digs into Buchi Babu Sana's ambitious sports drama, with Ram Charan in the title role. Vaashi finds plenty to admire in the film's foundation — its framing device set in 2016, where Boman Irani's sports official traces the legend of Peddi back to 1990s Vizianagaram, and its evocation of cricketing talent, caste discrimination and rural life. He singles out the craft on display, from Ratnavelu's cinematography and Avinash Kolla's production design to A.R. Rahman's richly layered soundtrack. At its core, Vaashi notes, the film speaks to sport as identity and its power to uplift entire communities, and he credits Ram Charan for backing such a story and committing fully to a physically and emotionally demanding part — even as he feels the actor's emotional stretches lack depth, and lays part of that responsibility at the director's door, given what RRR already showed Charan was capable of.
Where the film loses Vaashi is in its writing. He argues that Peddi is a routine underdog drama whose emotions are heard more than felt, redeemed mainly by Buchi Babu's flashes of visual brilliance — a father's slate carrying four Telugu letters, a fight continued while holding a dead body, the recurring sugarcane motif, the hero running ahead of a speeding train. He takes particular issue with the writing and presentation of Janhvi Kapoor's Acchiyamma, calling out the camera's objectifying gaze, and finds Jagapathi Babu and Shivarajkumar underutilised. Comparing the film's spirit to Mari Selvaraj's Karnan while missing that film's emotional force, and finding its Karate Kid influence obvious and ineffective, Vaashi concludes that for Peddi's heart and for Ram Charan's faith in this story, Peddi needed to be a better film. And that is the THR India bottomline.
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