Rakta Charitra (transl. History of Blood) is a 2010 Indian biographical political action thriller film directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Prashant Pandey. Based on the life of Paritala Ravindra, the film features an ensemble cast of Vivek Oberoi, Sudeep, Shatrughan Sinha, Abhimanyu Singh, Radhika Apte, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Sushant Singh, Raja Krishnamoorthy, Zarina Wahab, Sushmita Mukherjee, Vishwajeet Pradhan and Ashish Vidyarthi. Shot simultaneously in Telugu and Hindi, with the latter titled Rakht Charitra, the film was released on 22 October 2010. A direct sequel Rakta Charitra 2 was released later that year.
Upon release, the film received controversies for its portrayal of extreme violence and political content, however was met with widespread critical acclaim, with praise towards the story, screenplay, direction, cinematography, dialogues, and realistic approach. Due to the film's depiction of extreme violence, multiple scenes and dialogues were removed from the A-rated theatrical version; the U/A rated home media version itself re-censored and deleted around seventeen minutes of footage, and as such, the theatrical version has become rare. Despite emerging as a flop during its theatrical run, the film has gained cult status and is regarded as one of Oberoi's best performances and Varma's best works.
Contents
Plot
Narsimha Deva Reddy is the most powerful MLA of the violent province of Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh. His close associate Veerbhadra is his trustworthy ally for his political work, to the extent that Narsimha gives him the freedom to contest Jilla Parishad elections for his men. Veerbhadra champions the causes of the poor and oppressed, and they look up to him like their leader. Nagmani Reddy, close to Narsimha, becomes jealous of the budding trust between Veerbhadra and Narsimha, and convinces Narsimha that Veerbhadra wants to usurp Narsimha's position. Narsimha summons Veerbhadra and cancels the seats of Veerbhadra's contestants for the elections. Veerbhadra lashes out at Narsimha for being unfair to the underprivileged communities and storms out. Nagmani orders the capture of Mandha, the right-hand man of Veerbhadra, and manipulates him into killing Veerbhadra, giving him the assurance that if he does it, people will suspect the policies of Veerbhadra as his own follower killed him and he will be the next in line as the leader of the poor people; else Nagmani will have Mandha executed. Mandha reluctantly agrees to it. Soon, as Veerbhadra and his wife Nari travel to their destination in a bus with forty to fifty people, Mandha and Nagmani's men stop the bus, kill Veerbhadra's guards, and tell him to step out of the bus or else he will be killed along with the other innocents on the bus. Veerbhadra comes out, looks at Mandha, and dares him to kill. Nagmani's henchman Durga shoots at Veerbhadra, making it look like Mandha shot at him; prompting Mandha about the deal he made with Nagmani, he tells him to kill him in front of everyone. Mandha takes a boulder and crushes Veerbhadra's skull, thereby killing him.
The murder results in an agitation led by Veerbhadra's first son Shankar, who wants to avenge his father's murder and begins purging the supporters of Nagmani and Narsimha, including Durga, who is beheaded and had his head put on a spike. Enter Nagmani's ruthless son Bukka Reddy who enjoys raping women and killing men in brutal ways. He starts killing Shankar's men in gory ways: burning them alive, chopping off their heads with a sugarcane chopper, drilling a hole into them, throwing them into wells and feeding them to ravenous rats.
Pratap Ravi, who is the college-going second and youngest son of Veerbhadra, gets the news of his father's murder and rushes back. Nagmani orders Inspector Gajapathi Rao to kill Shankar in a fake encounter. When Pratap goes to the police station to ask about his brother, Gajapathi mockingly shows him Shankar's dead body. Infuriated with his brother's murder, Pratap and Veerbhadra's men kill all the police officers and Gajapathi. Nari pleads for Pratap's safety to Narsimha and Nagmani but gets kicked out.
Pratap hides in the jungle with his father's associates and vows to kill Nagmani, Mandha and Narsimha one by one, while implementing time gaps between each murder to instill fear of death in each one of them. He starts by busting into the house of Narsimha with his men who shoot dead his guards while Pratap himself kills Narsimha with a sickle in front of his wife Gomthi as she looks on in horror. Bukka captures Nari and just as he was about to kill her, he is intercepted by Gajapathi's replacement Ashwini Sinha who saves Nari; subsequently, Nari joins Pratap in the jungle, along with Shankar's widow Harita and the latter's infant. Pratap then visits his college and convinces his fiancée Nandini to marry him; her apprehensive parents reluctantly bless the new couple. The next target is Mandha; as he roams in the market, Pratap's men follow him, and before he can defend himself, they chop his hand off. Mandha begs for his life, but Pratap stabs him in front of everyone. They plan to kill Nagmani, but they are cautious as there is heavy police security in his house. Pratap and his men, dressed as cops, shoot dead the overconfident Nagmani, as well as the policemen and the henchmen kept for Nagmani's protection, in Nagmani's lawn. Nagmani's death evidently had a huge toll on Bukka as evident from his unhinged confrontation with Ashwini as the latter arrived to remove Nagmani's body for investigation in vain. Ashwini's senior SP Kanoonga warns her of the danger that lies ahead if she again clashes with Bukka as DCP Mohan Prasad is introduced as a charismatic yet cynical officer of Anantapur.
The saga progresses as famed superstar-turned-politician Shivaji Rao targets Anantapur for contesting elections. The day he enters Anantapur for the rally, Bukka's men, in order to prevent a competition for Bukka's elder brother Puru Reddy who is standing for the elections, throw bombs, which makes Shivaji get back inside the car and go back. This insults him greatly, and he asks his advisor Ram Moorthy for the one who can stop Bukka. Immediately, Ram mentions Pratap's name; Shivaji sends for him and puts down a proposal of joining his Praja Desham Party and ticket for contesting elections. Eventually, Pratap comes across an electrician named Babu Qadri, who seeks Pratap's help in avenging the death of his sister. Bukka had abducted and raped Babu's sixteen-year-old sister and the cops refused to lodge a complaint, because of which she immolated herself, and Bukka had then broken Babu's leg when the latter protested. Pratap assures him his vengeance but asks him to forget everything for some time. On the other hand, a now-deranged Bukka, upon learning that Pratap will be contesting the elections against Puru, threatens his men to sabotage the voting process by stealing the ballots, else he would personally kill them all. Knowing that the shift from guerrilla warfare to mainstream politics is dangerous, Pratap orders his men to create a list of their existing and potential enemies; as a clean-shaven Pratap joins the election campaign, a bloody rampage is unleashed by his top lieutenants AK and Omkar who create seven or eight action teams to eliminate over twenty people related to Bukka at the slightest pretext of suspicion.
As Bukka's men fail in rigging the election process even after multiple attacks on Pratap's men and subsequently die at Bukka's hands, Pratap wins by a majority and becomes a minister in Praja Desham Party. Immediately, Bukka is arrested by Ashwini's men on the charges of murders he committed during the election times, but not before Bukka shoots dead Ashwini. A desperate Puru, having lost the elections and fearing Bukka may commit suicide, gets him out on bail through the influence of Naidu Sir ji, the enigmatic minister in Shivaji's opposition party where the now-dead Nagmani and his sons are members. Bukka, inflamed with the desire to avenge his father's death, hides out in Flat no. 102 of Maheshwari Complex in Masab Tank with his men, and plots to kill Pratap. Pratap, having bought a luxurious house after coming to power, comes to know about his hideout devises a plan to execute him, after taking permission from Shivaji. He kidnaps the teenage servant of Bukka and bribes him with five lakh rupees to aid in the execution. He immediately gathers his men and calls Babu to lead the execution of Bukka. By using the entry of a pimp into the complex with his prostitutes for Bukka as a ruse, Babu and Pratap's men rush into the flat. In the attack, Pratap's men shoot dead Bukka's men while Babu personally hacks Bukka with an axe multiple times to death.
With Pratap achieving complete dominance over Anantapur, a traumatized Puru begs for mercy and promises to retire from politics; Pratap, having no personal vendetta against the cowardly Puru, spares him. The death of Bukka horrified and polarized most of his party members to which Shivaji reminds them how demonic Bukka himself was. On Shivaji's instructions, Pratap assembled all the rowdies of Anantapur and coldly warns them against terrorizing Anantapur ever again. Slowly, Pratap began to operate a parallel government where people used to visit him to seek justice in case of legal failures. At this stage, no one has the courage to stand up against Pratap in fear of being executed by Pratap. This makes Pratap totally complacent to the upcoming threats stacking up against him.
The mid-credits sequence featured a montage of the events of the sequel, titled Rakta Charitra 2, featuring a new adversary for Pratap who is hellbent on exacting vengeance on him for killing his family.
Reception
Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave 4 out of 5 stars, describing it as a powerful, dark, and exceptionally violent film not meant for the faint-hearted. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India gave 3 out of 5 stars, stating that "Rakta Charitra holds up a brutal mirror on the muck that masquerades as democracy in India". Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave 3 out of 5 stars, noting that "Rakta Charitra is a bold, disturbing film that’s bursting with the kind of confidence we haven’t seen from the filmmaker recently. If the sight of blood doesn’t make you uncomfortable, chances are you’ll enjoy this film". Kittu Singh of Rediff gave 2.5 out of 5 stars, writing that "Once the film is over you realise that all Rakta Charitra has been is a two-hour promotional fare for Rakta Charitra 2. Yes, there is more to come". Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave 2.5 stars out of 5 and wrote "It is an interesting story, and Oberoi, re-united with RGV after Company does a good job as Ravi. But the blood overtakes it all: Rakta Charitra is not for the faint-hearted".
Sequel
A sequel titled Rakta Charitra 2 was released in December 2010 which featured Suriya, introduced in the mid-credits, as the protagonist; it marked the debut of the Tamil actor into both Hindi and Telugu films.