Movie: Leader
Director: Sekhar Kammula
Produced by: AVM Productions
Leader is a story of a CM's son who wants to change the way politics are running in the state of Andhra Pradesh. CM hurts badly in in a bomb blast planned by his brother's son, dhanunjay. The discussion for next CM comes in to picture even before CM dies. Dhanunjay starts making arrangements to become next CM with the help of Party Leader, who is nothing but the brother of ex-CM.
CM has a son, who is working in USA, and is not involved in the politics even though his father is a CM. CM wants his Son to be next CM of the state and he tells this to his son just before he dies. This is a bit surprising.. Sekhar has shown that the CM has thoughts to see his son as CM but did not show any reason for not expressing it to his son. Everybody thinks that CM's son is not interested in politics and He also says that He will go to US. After the death of his father, he comes to know the various corruptions in which his father is involved. His father has a lot of money earned through corruption. Inspired by his father's last words, his mothers motivation and seeing how corruptions are affecting people.. he decides to become next CM of state.
He appoints one sufferer of his fathers corruption as his PA. Only experience he had is how to bribe various people in government. With the help of him and a TV reporter girl, he pens a plan to become CM. He gives 2cr of money to each MLA of their party saying his father has asked him to do so and will give 2cr after sometime, to keep them stick to his side. Two things here, one 4crs is not enough to buy an MLA and also you cant stick plaster to every MLA's mouth. He also buys the coalition party leader (Muniswamy) of govt to turn his side from dhanunjay.
Leader, along with his mother, meets party leader (Peddayana), his uncle to take oath from to make Leader as CM. Shocked by this development, He could not give full promise. In the party meeting to elect next CM, MLAs refuse to elect dhanunjay as CM, only to give shock to dhanunjay. The Money and Sympathy works on Leader side and becomes CM of A.P.
well, the person, who wants to change politics, changed him self by chosing an unethical way to become next CM. Whatever may be your intention, wrong is wrong. You cant keep doing bad things saying I am doing all this for good. ok... Leader takes charge of CM.. appoints same old corrupted MLAs as Ministers. He keeps belief in Bureaucrats. Sekhar could not find any corruption in bureaucrats surrounding CM. Leader's single agenda is to eradicate the corruption. doesn't it look funny.. the man who became CM through corruption wanted to eradicate corruption. So if he truly starts the process, first axe should be on him. looks like i am pin pointing too many things.
He proposes a bill in Assembly (similar to what loksatta mla jayaprakash narayan has proposed), giving full freedom to ACB (Anti Corruption Bureau) bringing all bureaucrats and people elected leaders under ACB. To his surprise, his own party people rejects it. But I didn't understand why he approaches opposition leader to accept this bill. He interacts with opposition leader and that brings in a change in him. He suggests to remove MLA's from the scope of bill inorder to pass the bill. I have never seen such opposition leaders.. JP says hundred such dialogues in assembly. Finally bill gets passed. ACB starts collecting lot of money.
with ACB in action, MLAs are under pressure with people under them are being attacked by ACB. They inturn brings pressure on CM. CM then promises them that their relatives will also be exempted from ACB.. this is to protect his post so that he can reach his target of collecting corrupted money.
Dhanunjay, in the mean time, utilizes the anguish in MLA's due to ACB attacks and starts turning them their side. He works with a single mission to bring down Leader from CM post. He tries to turn Muniswamy also to his side. To avoid this, Leader starts love thread with Muniswamy's daughter (of second wife). He puts marriage proposal to her, hearing which, Muniswamy turns Leader's side. But this is all Leader's action to protect his post to reach his goal.
He keeps compromising on things to protect his post, and finally he achieves the target money he wanted. Then he submits his resignation.. starts own party with help of bureaucrats in his CM's office. Obviously Leader wins the election.
While this film may appear to be real, i feel it is far from real. Its just a political drama.. all actions are inside single party. Politics does involve hell lot of things which needs a lot of dedicated human resources and money. It is possible to show anything in a movie.. but in real you cannot control things.
This is all just my view. The movie is nice to watch without any dirty dialogues and vulgarity. Another good attempt by sekhar kammula. If this 'Leader' can atleast make viewers think of whom to vote and whom not, sekhar will be more happy, I guess.
