Quick-witted Raja obviously admires the critically acclaimed and popular yesteryear director-actor, Shankar Nag and his movie, 'Auto Raja' which is and has been an inspiration for many a driver. He follows his role model's morals and lives proudly in his profession as a simple auto driver. He crosses paths with a naive village girl, Rani, who has come to the city to become a professional actress. Fed up of the radio jockeys frequent taunts and accusations hurled towards auto drivers, he outsmarts an RJ on air. He gets a part-time job as an RJ himself and becomes much closer to the general public than any RJ before, but due to circumstances, nobody has seen him or knows who the real host of the program is. Meanwhile Rani is being stalked by a group of rapists and human traffickers.
The title is a homage Shankar Nag's movie of the same name. The movie has plenty of ideas and directions it could go with, like the increase in rapes, casting couch syndrome in movies, a fish out of water situation with the village girl who came to town with big hopes, the plight of the auto drivers and the general disillusionment with religion. A couple of the songs are great as well. But, it fails to capitalize on any of these due to the director's insistence on playing it safe. Ganesh doesn't impress in this role and its more because of the script than his ability. He's a good actor and the two off-beat characters that he did which were really great were those in Cheluvina Chittara and Aramane. Bhama, Arun Sagar and the rest of the cast are fine. One thing which was exciting was that most of the movie has been shot around where I live, my 12th grade college and tuitions. Basically, the very places I've grown up in. The ending is very interesting since Raja never confessed his love for Rani and yet died for her without her ever knowing that he had died and that the RJ who was responsible to radically change her life was the same man that she had grown to distrust. That would have been enormously powerful if the story that preceded was executed competently. Such potential wasted.
6/10
The title is a homage Shankar Nag's movie of the same name. The movie has plenty of ideas and directions it could go with, like the increase in rapes, casting couch syndrome in movies, a fish out of water situation with the village girl who came to town with big hopes, the plight of the auto drivers and the general disillusionment with religion. A couple of the songs are great as well. But, it fails to capitalize on any of these due to the director's insistence on playing it safe. Ganesh doesn't impress in this role and its more because of the script than his ability. He's a good actor and the two off-beat characters that he did which were really great were those in Cheluvina Chittara and Aramane. Bhama, Arun Sagar and the rest of the cast are fine. One thing which was exciting was that most of the movie has been shot around where I live, my 12th grade college and tuitions. Basically, the very places I've grown up in. The ending is very interesting since Raja never confessed his love for Rani and yet died for her without her ever knowing that he had died and that the RJ who was responsible to radically change her life was the same man that she had grown to distrust. That would have been enormously powerful if the story that preceded was executed competently. Such potential wasted.
6/10
