Bangaram

Bangaram (“Gold”) is a 2006 Telugu action comedy written and directed by Dharani and produced by A. M. Rathnam, who had earlier produced Kushi. Pawan Kalyan plays the title role of a TV reporter, with Meera Chopra, Sanusha and Ashutosh Rana, and Mukesh Rishi, Raja and Reema Sen in support. Vidyasagar composed the music, S. Gopinath shot it and V. T. Vijayan edited it. It was released on 3 May 2006.

What the story is about

Bangaram is a reporter at a news channel who dreams of joining the BBC. To get there he needs a signature from Peddi Reddy, a powerful village figure, and in the process he gets tangled up with Peddi Reddy’s daughters, Sandhya and Vindhya. Peddi Reddy has agreed to marry Sandhya to the brother of the menacing Bhooma Reddy, but Sandhya is in love with Vinay.

Feeling guilty after accidentally foiling Sandhya’s attempt to escape, and stung by Vindhya’s glares, Bangaram decides to help her get to the city and to Vinay, with Bhooma Reddy’s men in pursuit. The film is a chase comedy built on that journey.

Cast and crew

• Pawan Kalyan as Bangaram
• Meera Chopra as Sandhya Reddy
• Sanusha as Vindhya Reddy
• Ashutosh Rana as Bhooma Reddy
• Mukesh Rishi as Peddi Reddy
• Raja as Vinay
• Reema Sen as a reporter
• Tanikella Bharani as the channel chief
• Raghu Babu as a driver, Ali as a priest and Venu Madhav as Sathish
• Trisha in a special appearance as Dhanalakshmi

Writer and director: Dharani. Producer: A. M. Rathnam. Music: Vidyasagar. Cinematography: S. Gopinath. Editing: V. T. Vijayan. Runtime: 176 minutes.

Making the film

The film’s muhurat shot took place at Annapoorna Studios on 23 January 2004, more than two years before release. Vidyasagar’s soundtrack was launched on the evening of 16 March 2006 at a quiet function at the Sunethra School for the Blind at Pedda Amberpet, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, with the Tamil star Vijay as chief guest.

Reviews

Most critics were harsh. The Hindu felt that “though the subject is interesting, the director fails to handle it properly”, and Sify found “neither sense nor style in this helter-skelter endeavour”. Full Hyderabad called it “one of the more thoughtless films to come out of the Telugu movie stables”. The kindest was Kishore of Nowrunning, who gave it three stars out of five and wrote that Pawan Kalyan “proves that he is not hailed as the ‘power star’ for nothing”. We have not found box-office figures from a named outlet.

Where to watch Bangaram

We do not have a confirmed streaming listing for Bangaram on file. If we verify one with a platform, it will appear on this page.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Bangaram and the reviews it cites, linked above; our own cast and crew records.