Rakhi (2006 film)

Rakhi
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Krishna Vamsi
Written by	Krishna Vamsi Sainath Thotapalli (Dialogue)
Screenplay by	Krishna Vamsi
Story by	Krishna Vamsi
Produced by	K. L. Narayana S. Gopal Reddy (Presenter)
Starring	Jr. NTR Ileana D'Cruz Charmme Kaur
Cinematography	S. Gopal Reddy
Edited by	Shankar
Music by	Devi Sri Prasad
Production company	Sri Durga Arts
Release date	22 December 2006 (2006-12-22) (India)
Running time	173 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu

Rakhi or Rakhee is a 2006 Indian Telugu-language action film directed by Krishna Vamsi. The film stars Jr. NTR, Ileana D'Cruz, Charmme Kaur, Suhasini, Sarath Babu, Chandra Mohan, Brahmaji, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Saranya Ponvannan, Brahmanandam, Sunil and Sayaji Shinde.^[1][2] play other supporting roles. The music was composed by Devi Sri Prasad, while the cinematography and editing were handled by S. Gopal Reddy and Shankar.^[3]

Rakhi was released with 250 prints and was a sleeper-hit at the box office. Jr. NTR's performance in the film is considered to be one of his career's best.^[4][5]

Ramakrishna aka Rakhi (Jr. NTR) aspires to become a railway stationmaster like his father (Chandra Mohan). His love interest and close friend Tripura (Ileana D'Cruz) is a reporter on a TV channel who exposes atrocities against women in society. For Rakhi, his sister Gayathri (Manjusha) is everything. She is married to a software professional (Ravi Varma) who plans to go to the USA. However, his uncle brought a proposal where he would get 1 crore as a dowry. At first, they try to get rid of her by fighting with Rakhi and demanding more dowry, but when Gayathri overhears them, they burn her alive. Devastated by this as she was also pregnant, Rakhi's family tries to sue them in court, but a corrupt lawyer, a policeman, and a doctor fabricate that Gayathri was mentally disturbed and committed suicide. Rakhi was unable to accept this. Tripura calls Rakhi's father and grandfather for the second hearing of the case.

In a graveyard, Rakhi still is in shock, and looking at Gayathri's ashes, he hallucinates and sees Gayathri screaming near him and burnt to death, eventually seeing that every girl like Gayathri is tortured, killed, molested, and burnt, and they also call him "brother". In a rage, he burns alive her in-laws and all those people who fabricated things about her in front of the court in the same way Gayathri's in-laws burnt her alive. He researches the atrocities on the women at Tripura's office. Tripura is shocked to see him as he had murdered the perpetrators of Gayathri, including the corrupt lawyer, doctor, and police officer. He then explains to her that every woman is harassed, killed, and tortured like Gayathri, even molested, and the world is filled with these wretched men who think that a woman is vulnerable, also showing an information paper. His grandfather tells him to forget everything that has happened, but his father understands everything and tells him to continue punishing the sadistic men, also stopping him from thinking about his family.

Rakhi starts a manhunt for all sex offenders, sex traffickers, and perverted men and burns them alive while dropping a rakhi at every site. A police officer named Meenakshi Iyer (Suhasini Maniratnam) is leading the hunt for him, and the entire police force is in a dilemma as the public women all consider Rakhi to be a god and all men are staying away from women as they do not want to be killed. Meenakshi states that Rakhi is either a terrorist, a factionist, a Naxalite, or a member of the dacoits who wants publicity doing these and she will arrest him in 24 hours.

Along with Tripura, Rakhi explains his story to the people, including Meenakshi and her team. He also explains why is he doing this and what will happen after these incidents. Meenakshi even arrests Tripura for recording Rakhi live on the TV program, Tripura is ashamed that Meenakshi is trying to arrest a man who is stopping the sex offenders as an act for the people, especially, the women. Eventually, the police keep a reward of 10 lakhs for nabbing Rakhi. Rakhi goes to meet his father, grandfather, aunt, and cousin Gowri (Charmme Kaur). He explains that he is not the previous Rakhi anymore.

Rakhi eventually surrenders to Meenakshi and goes to jail, but Meenakshi asks him why he surrendered, and he smiles at her. It leads her to research Rakhi's next victim. It is revealed that he did so to kill a love-crazed man Madhukar (Amit Tiwari) who killed Gayathri's friend Srilatha (Srilalitha) because of repeatedly refusing his proposal. Meenakshi talks to Rakhi after being verbally abused and kicked by the state minister (Sayaji Shinde), whose son was also killed by Rakhi, and she realizes that what Rakhi is doing is correct as the law is protecting all those men from death after abusing women, even sharing her feelings to him. Rakhi also kills the minister after he places a bomb outside Rakhi's jail that kills many women who came forward to Rakhi to tie rakhis on his wrist, including Gowri. Rakhi goes to court, and upon the judge (Prakash Raj) seeing that Rakhi did justice to the country, resigns from his post and announces that he will be Rakhi's lawyer and get him acquitted. The film ends with Rakhi motivating all the women outside the court to support him.

The film has six songs composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The music was well received.

The film was released on 545 screens, including 431 in Andhra Pradesh, 29 in Karnataka, six in Orissa, three in Tamil Nadu, three in Mumbai and 73 overseas.^[6] The film's dubbed versions were released in Tamil, Hindi, and Bhojpuri as Rakhi, The Return of Kaalia and Kaalia respectively. It was also dubbed in Kannada under the same title.

The film had a 100-day run in 30-centres.^[7]

• Rakhi at IMDb