Maharshi

Vamshi Paidipally's 2019 Telugu film is about a successful businessman reckoning with his past. Rishi has reached the top with the company he built in America, and when his university friend Ravi is in trouble he leaves it all and returns to India. Ravi is fighting alongside farmers in a village over land, and it emerges that Rishi abandoned him years ago. The film runs on three time frames: the university years, the founding of the company and the present struggle in the village. It touches on agricultural policy and farmer suicides, but was criticised for tying the solution to the intervention of one rich man. It runs close to three hours at a scattered pace. It was promoted as Mahesh Babu's twenty-fifth film. Who it's for: viewers who like Telugu commercial drama. Who it's not for: anyone expecting social questions to be handled realistically; the film stays centred on its hero.