Srimanthudu

Harsha is the son of an extremely wealthy businessman. He has everything he could want and wants none of it. He meets a young woman named Charuseela and learns about the village she comes from, Devarakota, most of which is under the control of a local strongman and whose infrastructure has collapsed. Harsha does not buy the village and rename it. He moves there and starts rebuilding it. Koratala Siva writes and directs. Mahesh Babu plays Harsha and Shruti Haasan plays Charuseela. The starting point is a real practice in India. The idea of a person or an institution adopting a village and taking on its infrastructure became an official programme, and the film entered that argument; announcements by public figures about adopting villages after its release were attributed directly to it. The narrative runs in the shape of an action film with the emphasis on development: water, schools, roads and land ownership. That is also its weakness. The problems are solved by the goodwill of one rich man, and a structural question is reduced to personal heroism. It was a large commercial success in Telugu cinema and one of Mahesh Babu's biggest films. Who it is for: viewers who like Telugu action and popular films carrying a social message. Who it is not for: it runs long, the fights feel attached to the story rather than part of it, and the female character has limited function.