Khaleja - A postmortem

A classic case, where we could understand the simple concept of movie making "Don't confuse your audience, take them into confidence".

What I liked in this movie

Mahesh was at far the best in his career in this movie. He successfully overplayed the emotions as and when required. This is one movie, where a Telugu hero was not shown as GOD. It had a lot of other characters calling the mahesh character as god, but never by the character. The hero was shown as an ordinary person for most part especially in the following scenes.

1. Pantlu tadisipothunnayi subbu.

2. Naaku telisinavi moddey.. taxi nadapatam... evadanna godava koste dobeyyatam, aadiki balam ekkuvunte dobbinchukovatam.

3. ee expectations nu tattukolekapothunannu bhayya.

The concept of the movie, if you want to help somebody without your own interests, it automatically happens. This is a wonderful concept and I think is the first of its kind, where a bit of philosophy was added to a telugu movie subject. It did not go around the age old concept of hero fighting for his own reasons.

Dialogues were exceptionally good and scenes were well thought of and were shown with a lot of ease. Here are some of them

hello.. ikkada predictions avi evaru cheptaramma... aaha..baga famous anamata....

ee madhya baga commmercial ga tayarayyavu nuvvu...

taxi driver udyogam ochindi...neeku sugar kadhaa anduku sweets teeskuraaledhu

Anu : "Tomgaru...koncham lift ivvara...please"
Bhayya : "Yela adigindo sosava? naaku gaani lorry undi unte nene lift ichesavadni bhayya"

pettinchuko bhayya...ee madhya ada maga theda lekundaa pettincheskuntunnaaru - tattoos ani...

chichu.... chichu...bagundi...bagundi chichu ---rey...rey agandra peddayyaka vaadu nannu tittukuntadu

Mahi- ROju kobbari kaya kottuku tinadaniki idemanna gudi anta ra? Ivala lunch marcham..apple...

Ali-An apple a day keeps doctor away....
Raghubabu- nenu dcotor ni...aa apple tini nannu vadileyandi..
Mahi - ENtra...apple tini ninnu vadileyyala..ante.... aratipandu tini sampeyyachaa....

yentra ala arustunnav...aruvu...baga arichi encourage chestunnava?? amamamam...ila nannu baga enocurage chesi nenu aadni yesesthe chanchalgud jailkellipothe shani adivarollu vachi naaku prasadalu pedtara

bemmi: akkada evaru leru sir..

mahi: unte oorukuntaaretraa? aa battalenti raa..aa coatu...t-shirtu..tie...battaltho chapesetttunaav gaaa..

mallee aa tie eskuni kanipinchaavanuku...champesthaanu...

gunde baddalaipooyindaa bangaram..

neeku manushula kanna mokkalu ekkuvaipooyara
nee amma nannallakanna ekkuva isthame idi..
na kalikinda kasakasa naligipothundi
deeni peru ...ficus..ficus??
aa naa *****

What I did not like in this movie

Villain character - Except Mahesh's character most of the other characters were not developed well. A strong villain helps a movie to move forward. Unfortunately villainism was not shown properly in this movie.

Movie title - The title considered for this movie was Saradhi, a soft title. The title was changed based on Fans request. This movie can be considered a soft movie, and should have been named with a softer title. It would have grounded the expectations.

Movie's editing - I would have deleted the following scenes for sure.

1. Delete Boom shaka song in first half and run the end titles on it.
2. Delete Sada Siva song by half and run the begining credits on it.
3. Delete the sunday Monday song completely.
4. Edit the first fight by half, so that peole will not get into action mood.
5. edit some of the brahmanandam scenes during the villans sons introduction.

Movies Background Music - It needs to be enhanced a bit more. Its not upto the mark.

Movies Promotion - The promotion of movie always sets the mind. It needs to be done well and should have been done in a more controlled manner. This movie was promoted as an action entertainer all through out. Most of the pre-release pictures showed it as an action entertainer. which it was not. Proper promotion would have set the moods of the individual to expect a comedy based entertainer.

Business perspective

Khaleja had a highest demand among distributors and exhibitors and except for Karnataka and Overseas, it turned out to be a failure venture all across Andhra Pradesh.

The movie was made with a budget of about 36 crores (singanamala Ramesh had 23 crores and C. Kalyan had 13 crores).

Nizam - 12 crores - Sold to Geetha Arts much before the release date announcement. Collected around 7 crores. Loss to exhibitor - 5 crores.

Krishna - 2.25 crores - sold to mallayya garu in the last moment. Final share 1.05 crores, Loss 1.2 crores.

Guntur - 2.5 crores - Sold to Hari from Nellore. Collected around 1.9-2.00 crores. Net loss - 50 Lakhs.

nellore - 1.19 crores collected around 60 -70 lakhs - net loss of about 50 lakhs.

Uttarandhra - 2.7 crores - Bharat pictures. collected around 2.00 crores. net loss - 70 Lakhs.

Ceded - 5.25 crores - NV prasad - collected around 3.25 Net loss of 2 crores.

East Godavari - bought by Janardhan Yadav for 2.25 crores. made about 1.4 lakhs loss of 85 Lakhs.

West godavari - Sold for 1.98 crores. Collected 1.12 crores. net loss of 85 lakhs.

sold for about 30 crores in andhra with a loss of about 11.60 crores. this is the total loss within andhra pradesh. Please do note that some of the loss is covered to distributors with the MG (minimum guarantee) offeres. net loss to distributors may be around 5.00 crores. remaining shared by exhibitors.