'Daaku Maharaaj' Movie Review: Balakrishna Is King, But The Content Isn't
Headlined by Nandamuri Balakrishna and featuring Bobby Deol in his Telugu debut, 'Daaku Maharaaj' is slick and technically sound, but predictable to a fault.
Director: Bobby Kolli
Cast: Nandamuri Balakrishna, Bobby Deol, Urvashi Rautela, Pragya Jaiswal, and Shraddha Srinath
Writer: Bobby Kolli
Language: Telugu
The worst thing a masala film can do is make you wonder, while it unfolds with full intensity, how many heroic entries are too many heroic entries? In Nandamuri Balakrishna's Daaku Maharaaj, filmmaker Bobby Kolli turns every little movement into a moment and every scene into a spectacle but forgets that a good 'mass' film is not only about the entries... but also the exit. Is there a point to it all if the payoff isn't worth it?
Daaku Maharaaj begins with a banging action block that builds up the arrival of Balakrishna (Balayya, as he is called), signaling not only what's to come in the film through the character, but also nodding to the actor's 2.0 phase in his career. This is by far the slickest action film Balakrishna has starred in, with a thumping score by Thaman S and Vijay Kartik Kannan's stunning cinematography.
Daaku Maharaaj remains consistently high on style, and Kolli manages to drum up new ways of creating the perfect setup for the blood bath that follows. Armed with Thaman's thumping — but often also loud and repetitive — score and Kannan's grand visuals, Kolli has a blast as he presents Balakrishna in all his glory.
This is also the film's biggest strength, for it does fan service exceedingly well, anchoring its lead star's larger-than-life aura into a narrative that the actor constantly elevates, even when the material threatens to pull everything down. His multiple arrivals on-screen are marked by an earthquake, a sandstorm, and even a baby kicking inside the womb, all of which are fun until they start getting exhausting; what Daaku Maharaaj can't escape is the buzzkill of predictability.
It is a bummer, because the film, despite placing itself neatly in the familiar beats of a masala entertainer, displays grand ambitions in its relentlessly-paced first half.
When the baby girl of a family is under threat, Balakrishna is summoned to be her guardian angel. He is her designated driver with a backstory; a man who can wield an axe, heat it over a fire, and then use it to light a cigarette. "I did my Masters in Murders," he casually announces at one point. The quirks work.
Though better paced, the first half sees a completely wasted track with Urvashi Rautela, a police chief who dreams of dancing with Balakrishna (cue: the 'Dabidi Dibidi' song) after he rescues a child and finishes off an army of baddies. Romantic.
The second half is a deep dive into the backstory, featuring a never-seen-before transformation of a civil engineer into... a dacoit. The film delves into a wider world with more characters, and finally gives the other two leading ladies, Pragya Jaiswal and Shraddha Srinath, something to do within that world. Srinath, in particular, tries to reach higher than what perhaps the role demands of her and does a neat job.
However, where Daaku Maharaaj bafflingly stumbles — while establishing that it is your familiar masala movie — is in not having a solid villain. All the buildup to establish an opponent worthy of Balakrishna throughout the film completely fizzles out by the time the face-off arrives, and he is hurriedly packed off in an underwhelming climax.
In a classic hero vs. villain story, the face-off is always the highlight; everything else is merely the icing. Bobby Deol here, in his Telugu debut, does nothing more than grunt, stare, and smoke. Not that he is incapable of portraying villainy, as he displayed effectively in Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal (2023), despite having less screen time in the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer.
What Vanga got right was to give the audience a battle royale at the end, in an inventive sequence where the two men went at each other, no holds barred, all blood and fury.
But Daaku Maharaaj is so concerned with reiterating that Balakrishna is God (it begins with a title card introducing the actor as the 'God of the masses') that it forgets everyone else. But perhaps it doesn't matter. This is devotion on steroids.