Pokiri
Film poster
Directed by	Puri Jagannadh
Produced by	Puri Jagannadh Manjula Ghattamaneni
Written by	Puri Jagannadh
Starring	Mahesh Babu Ileana D'Cruz Prakash Raj Sayaji Shinde Ashish Vidyarthi Ali Brahmanandam
Music by	Mani Sharma
Cinematography	Shyam K. Naidu
Editing by	Marthand K. Venkatesh
Distributed by	Vaishno Academy
Release date(s)	April 28, 2006 (2006-04-28) [1]
Running time	162 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu
Budget	12 crore (US$2.2 million)[2]
Box office	42 crore (US$7.7 million)[3]

Pokiri (English: Rogue) is a 2006 Indian Telugu film written and directed by Puri Jagannadh starring Mahesh Babu and Ileana D'Cruz in the lead roles and Prakash Raj, Sayaji Shinde and Ashish Vidyarthi in supporting roles. The film is a joint production between Puri Jagannadh's Vaishno Academy and Manjula Ghattamaneni's Indira Productions.

The film was released on April 28, 2006.^[1] After the film's impact on commercial cinema, the film was remade in multiple languages, in Tamil as Pokkiri (2007) directed by Prabhu Deva and in Hindi cinema as Wanted (2009). It was again remade in Kannada cinema as Porki (2010). It was dubbed in Hindi as 'Tapoori Wanted'.

The film was screened at the IIFA film festival held in Dubai in 2006.^{[4] [5]} The film ultimately claimed to be the highest-grossing Telugu film of its time after its theatrical run.^[6] The film has won four Nandi Awards, two Filmfare Awards South for the year 2006 and one Santosham Film Awards for the year 2007.

Plot [edit]

The city of Hyderabad is rife with the nefarious activities of land mafia. There are two rival gangs; one under Ali Bhai (Prakash Raj) who resides in Dubai and controls the operation through his siblings Ajju and Mona, and another operated by local goon Narayan. Both threaten builders and land owners into giving them protection money or property, through force, extortion or murder. Sayed (Sayaji Shinde) arrives as the new Commissioner of Hyderabad and starts cracking down on crime.

Pandu (Mahesh Babu), a thug, is abducted by Mallesh, a member of Ali's gang and his henchmen. Pandu has taken a contract from Narayan to beat up Mallesh, which he does. Ajju invites Pandu to join Ali Bhai's gang. Pandu declines stating that he does not work for any gang, but is ready to do anything given enough money. Pandu falls in love with Shruthi (Ileana D'Cruz) when he visits his cousin's (Ajay) aerobics class, but she mistakes him for a thug. Shruthi, a college student, lives with her widowed mother and younger brother. Bramhi (Brahmanandam) lives above Shruthi's house, and frequently tries to convince Shruthi to marry him. Sub inspector Pashupathy (Ashish Vidyarthi), is a corrupt officer in the colony where Pandu and Shruthi live who often works with the land mafia. He is also on the payroll of Ali Bhai. He falls for Shruthi and decides to make her his mistress, even after multiple rejections by Shruthi.

Pandu's first assignment with Ali's gang is to kill a member of Narayan's band. However, police show up at the spot where Pandu and the other gangsters are waiting. Pandu engages the cops long enough for the others to finish the task and flee. He also helps Shruthi escape from Pashupathy. She is impressed by his kindness and friendship soon blossoms between the two, leading to the development of unspoken romantic feelings for each other. When Shruthi tries to expresses her feelings they are attacked by members of Narayan's gang, whom Pandu finishes off. Shruthi is shocked to learn that Pandu is a gangster with no qualms about killing people.

Pashupathy arranges for some thugs to pretend to rape Shruthi, so that no decent family will want to take her as their daughter-in-law; with no other option Shruthi and her mother will accept his demands. Pandu learns of this and assaults Pashupathy incognito, warning him that if he is found responsible for this incident then things will turn ugly for him. After much ado and mental anguish, Shruthi accepts Pandu.

Ali Bhai comes to Hyderabad and kills Narayan. He also meets Pandu to discuss the killing of a minister by blowing up a balloon. Pandu disagrees with Ali Bhai's method as it would involve killing innocents. In the middle of their argument police raid the club and arrest Ali Bhai. His gang members retaliate by creating a lewd video of the police commissioner's daughter and releasing it to media. They also kidnap her, forcing the police to release Ali Bhai. Ali Bhai drugs the commissioner's daughter, causing her to reveal that her father placed a mole in Ali Bhai's gang. They find that Pandu's friends father Suryanarayan was a police inspector and the inspector's son, Krishna, is now a part of Pandu's gang. Ali Bhai kills Krishna in front of Suryanaraya. However, it is revealed that the person who died was actually Ajay. Suryanaraya's son, Krishna Manohar, has gone undercover agent to finish off underworld mafia gangs. Ali Bhai kills Suryanaraya.

It is revealed that Pandu is Krishna Manohar. Krishna Manohar avenges his father's death by finishing off all members of Ali Bhai's gang including Ali Bhai and Pasupathy and saves the Commissioner's daughter.

Cast [edit]

• Mahesh Babu as Krishna Manohar aka "Pandu"
• Ileana D'Cruz as Shruthi
• Prakash Raj as Ali Bhai
• Nassar as Inspector Suryanarayana
• Ashish Vidyarthi as Sub Inspector Pasupathi
• Brahmanandam as Brahmi - Software Engineer, Shruthi's neighbour
• Subbaraju as Nayar
• Ali as Beggar Association leader
• Ajay as Ajay
• Jyothi Rana as Mona
• Master Bharath as Shruthi's brother
• Mumaith Khan in Item number

Production [edit]

Ayesha Takia was approached to play the role of Shruti but declined the role, although she portrayed the same role in the Hindi remake of Pokiri, titled Wanted. Consequently, the role of Shruti went to Ileana D'Cruz.^{[7] [8]}

Release [edit]

The film was released on April 28, 2006.^[1]

Critical reception [edit]

Idlebrain gave a 3.5/5 rating and mentioned "Mahesh Babu’s performance in Pokiri itself is worth your ticket and the rest is bonus!".^[9] Sify wrote "Pokiri is made to showcase Mahesh Babu’s heroism and it works to a large extent. He is fantastic and the superbly choreographed action scenes in a local train by fight master Vijayan and the shoot-out in the ruins are fantastic. The highlight is Mahesh Babu who looks cool, hip and is in complete control. Ileana is there for glamour and she is promising".^[10]

Box office [edit]

The film was released on 397 screens, including 354 in Andhra Pradesh, 20 in Karnataka, 3 in Orissa, 3 in Tamil Nadu, 1 in Mumbai and 16 overseas.^{[citation needed]} The film was later released in 30 theatres in Orissa. It debuted in Chennai with a 98.5% opening in a single screen at Jayaprada theaters.^[11] The film has completed 50 days in 300 centres.^[6] The film has completed 100 days in 200 centres, of them 163 were direct centres including 17 centers in Hyderabad alone.^[6] The film has completed 175 days in a record 63 centres.^[6] The film has completed 200 days in 15 centres.^[12] The film has completed 365 days in Bhagiradha theatre, Kurnool.^[12] The film has completed 500 days in Bhagiradha theatre, Kurnool.^[6] The final worldwide gross of the film is 42 crores and most of it was collected from Andhra Pradesh.^[3]

Awards and nominations [edit]

Soundtrack [edit]

The film has six tracks composed by Mani Sharma. The music was launched on March 30, 2006 and was released in stores on April 6, 2006. Lyrics for the three songs were penned by Bhaskarabhatla and another two songs were written by Kandikonda and remaining one song was written by Viswa.

Remakes [edit]

The film has been remade by various Indian film industries. First a year later, Pokiri was remade in Tamil as Pokkiri, starring Vijay and Asin and directed by Prabhu Deva.^[16] Two years later, it was remade into Hindi, also directed by Prabhu Deva, as Wanted,^[17] starring Salman Khan and Ayesha Takia and produced by Boney Kapoor though it was influenced more by the Tamil version. Wanted turned out to be a huge success, becoming not only one of the biggest hits of 2009, but also one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time. All of the remakes have featured Prakash Raj as the villain Ali Bhai (Telugu, Tamil) and Ghani Bhai (Hindi). Pokiri has also been remade in Kannada as Porkhi and starring Darshan, Pranitha, Devaraj, Ashish Vidyarthi while being directed by M. D. Sridhar and produced by Bachche Gowda.^[18]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Pokiri at the Internet Movie Database