Punchline: divinity - humanity
Genre: Action
Type: Straight
Banner: Kanakaratna Movies
Cast: Mahesh Babu, Anushka, Prakash Raj, Subbaraju, Brahmanandam, Rao Ramesh, Ali, Sunil, Archana (Veda), Tanikella Bharani, Shafi, Dharmavarapu Subramanyam etc
Music: Mani Sharma
Cinematography: Yash Bhatt
Editing: A Sreekar Prasad
Art (production designer): B Anand Sai
Fights: Peter Heins & Ram - Lakshman
Story - screenplay - dialogues - direction: Trivikram Sreenivas
Producer: Singanamala Ramesh Babu & C Kalyan
Release date: 7 October 2010
Theater watched: Screen 6, Prasads, Hyderabad
Cinematography: Yash Bhatt
Editing: A Sreekar Prasad
Art (production designer): B Anand Sai
Fights: Peter Heins & Ram - Lakshman
Story - screenplay - dialogues - direction: Trivikram Sreenivas
Producer: Singanamala Ramesh Babu & C Kalyan
Release date: 7 October 2010
Theater watched: Screen 6, Prasads, Hyderabad
Story
The story revolves around a remote village in Andhra Pradesh plauged by a strange disease killing a lot of people. The soothsayer of the village predicts that God would come to their village for rescue. Meanwhile, Raju (Mahesh Babu) a cab driver in Hyderabad goes to Rajasthan to handover an insurance cheque to a man's family who dies in his car. In a strange situation, Raju meets a man from the village and gets to know about their problem. Soon Raju realises he is none other than the God-sent, the soothsayer predicted, and the rest of the story is all about how Raju takes up the responsibility to rescue the village from the clutches of evil.
The story revolves around a remote village in Andhra Pradesh plauged by a strange disease killing a lot of people. The soothsayer of the village predicts that God would come to their village for rescue. Meanwhile, Raju (Mahesh Babu) a cab driver in Hyderabad goes to Rajasthan to handover an insurance cheque to a man's family who dies in his car. In a strange situation, Raju meets a man from the village and gets to know about their problem. Soon Raju realises he is none other than the God-sent, the soothsayer predicted, and the rest of the story is all about how Raju takes up the responsibility to rescue the village from the clutches of evil.Artists Performance
Mahesh Babu: Mahesh Babu who amazed everybody with his Uttarandhra dialect in his dialogue delivery in Pokiri this time uttered dialogues in Godavari dialect. He is simply superb in mouthing the dialogues penned by Trivikram. He is also exceptionally good in the action episodes and of course acting. You can see the hardwork he has put in for this movie on the screen. He changes his body language for this movie. His costumes are cool and he used scarf throughout the movie and it helped in Mahesh Babu look different. Mahesh Babu shed a lot of weight and looks extremely handsome in the movie.
Others: Anushka is good in the movie as an ‘iron leg’ lady. She has put on a little bit of weight compared to her recent outings. Prakash Raj is good as villain, but has a limited screen-time and has a conflict with hero only during the climax. Subbaraju is nice. Rao Ramesh is very good in a new get-up of a soothsayer and performed well with a controlled modulation. Shafi is fine. Tanikella Bharani, Dharmavarapu and Raghu Babu are adequte. Brahmanandam, Sunil and Ali entertain. MS Narayana is wasted. Archana did a small role. I fail to understand why Kota Srinivas played such minuscule role.Technical departments
Story screenplay - direction: Khaleja movie has a divine element in it. Trivikram balanced the divine part of it by saying that there is a God in everybody and all we need is an intent to serve others. The aspect of killing village men by mixing toxins in water seem to have resemblance to that of Sahara (2005) movie. The entire first half of the movie is like a road-film where the hero and heroine bond with each other while traveling. The second half sports the main story of the movie. Trivikram is a terrific dialogue writer and he gave his best dialogues to Mahesh Babu in Khaleja. Trivikram has a class taste while conceiving comedy episodes and he made sure that there are many episodes of such nature in the movie. Direction of the film is good in parts and screenplay should have been more effective. The beginning point and interval bang are good. Trivikram couldn’t justify the second half with right content and tone. Trivikram should have ironed the script better and made it concise/effective. The unbreakable glass episode of the movie seems to have been inspired by Sabrina (1955) movie (especially lady secretaries dancing on the glass to test strength). 
Other departments: Dialogues by Trivikram are huge asset to the movie. Music by Mani Sharma is good in three songs (Sadasiva, Taxi and Piliche). Though Yash Bhatt is the official cinematographer, parts of the movie were also shot by KV Guhan (Athadu) and Sunil Patel (Hum Tum). Cinematography is very good and there is a visual theme for the movie. Fights by Peter Heins and Ram Lakshman are excellent (especially the interval fight and pre-climax fight (checkout this trailer)). Editing is adequate. Production values are good.
Analysis: First half of the movie is entertaining though there is no story in it. Second half should have been better. Climax disappoints. Plus points of the movie are Mahesh Babu (terrific dialogue comedy and superb characterization) and Trivikram brand entertainment. On the flipside, the second half plays a spoilsport and movie lacks consistent tone. We have to wait and see how Khaleja works at the box office.
Rama Krishna (Kalyan Ram Nandamuri) is a football player who aspires to play for national team. He lives in a joint family and bonds over well with his sister Haritha (Saranya Mohan). He protects her all the time. One sudden day she disappears. He searches for her finds out that she is married to a factionist from Rayalaseema. And she is in trouble. The rest of the story is all about how he sacrifices his aim of playing for nation so that he can save from her from her trouble.
Kalyan Ram Nandamuri: Kalyan Ram has got two get-ups in the movie. He is normal in the first half and has a special get-up in the second half. Lot of appreciation should go to cinematographer Sarvesh Murari in bringing out starking variations between these two get-ups. Kalyan Ram’s dialogue delivery has improved by miles in this movie. And he is at ease in casual scenes and has impact-making presence in action episodes. Kalyan Ram is an honest actor and you can see his zeal to work hard towards it in this movie.
Others: Saranya Mohan suited the role very well and she is a nice actress. Sana Khan is beautiful in looks and she did adequately well. Shyam is nice as a guy with negative streaks. I loved the make-up of Kota, Telangana Sakuntala and Ajay in this movie. Kota is extremely good. Ajay looks menacing with a damaged eye. Raghu Karumanchi is an actor who is good at comedy and you can find him in most of the movies of Surender Reddy and NTR. He entertains with his typical Telangana dialect and funny face in this movie for a brief time. Ahuti Prasad, Chandra Mohan, Dharmavarapu and Telangana Sakuntala are adequate. Brahmanandam entertains in the second half with his cellphone comedy as ‘swathi muthyam’. 
Story - screenplay - direction: It is a sister sentiment movie with ample action elements. The ‘football player - joint family - sacrificing goal for family’ set-up seem to have resemblance to Chiranjeevi’s Vijetha. However, the story provided by Vakkantam Vamsi has a novel point in sister-sentiment thread. Screenplay of the movie is nice in the second half. Direction of the movie is decent though we expect the emotion to be more impact-making in scenes leading upto action episodes. Brahmanandam’s comedy and ‘naa daivam’ photo episodes will give relief in second half which is laden with action and sentiment.
Other departments: Cinematography by Sarvesh Murari is excellent (a part of the credit should also go to DI team). Dialogues by M Ratnam are big asset to the movie. Fights by Ram Lakshman are really good and chase episode of a SUV rotating in air is excellently conceived. However, climax scene of sword-piercing look unreal due to the excessive size of the sword. Most of the action sequences (chases and fight in the builder’s home) are good. Music by Mani Sharma is adequate. I liked Natu Kodi koora song (typical orchestration that is used in NBK’s hits like Narasimha Naidu and Samarasimha Reddy). The movie is made with proper care in terms of production values and post production quality. 
Analysis: First half of the movie is adequate. The movie gets interesting from the kidnap