Pilla Zamindar

Plot

Praveen Jaya Ramaraju aka P.J (Nani) is the grandson of a wealthy Zamindar Rudra Ramaraju (Nagineedu). PJ is a spoilt and an arrogant youngster. His grandfather writes a will with several conditions before he dies. His will states that PJ would inherit the entire wealth only if he completes his graduation as a common man without any luxuries. PJ now has to not only complete his graduate studies but he must do it within three years and he should study in a government college in a small village called Siripuram.

The will also states that PJ needs to stay in a hostel in Siripuram and manage living with a very little money. He goes to the village and meets the warden of the hostel Rajanna (Rao Ramesh). He begins adapting to the situations and changes his lavish lifestyle. He starts to understand the value of life and human beings. He becomes good friends with Kanna Babu (Srinivas Avasarala), Jaatheeyam (Dhanraj), Maqbool ("Tagubothu" Ramesh) and others. After hilarious scenes of how PJ struggles to adapt to simple village life, PJ takes the supplementary exams and with the help of Sindhu (Hari Priya), PJ passes it. Months after he joins the college, another condition of his grandfather is revealed: PJ needs to be elected as student union president of the college. During his struggle to live there and fulfill the conditions set by his grandfather his transformation from arrogance to humility appeals to the villagers and students. Meanwhile, he falls in love with Sindhu. It is revealed that the true purpose and reason behind his grandfather's conditions was because of PJ's father, who married against the wishes of Rudra Ramaraju. As a result, he was deprived of his inheritance. However Rudra Ramaraju realizes his mistake after his son and daughter-in-law (PJ's mother) are killed in an accident.

PJ succeeds in fulfilling the conditions laid down by his grandfather and he also transforms into a good person. He also risks his entire property to save Kanna Babu's life. Due to this reason he earns back his wealth and love of all, becoming a righteous Zamindar.

Cast

Production and casting

Nani and Srinivas Avasarala are once again seen together in this film after Ashta Chemma. G. Ashok opted most of the same crew who previously worked with him in Aakasa Ramanna for this film. They include Praveen Poodi handling the editing, Sai Sriram handling the camera, Chandrashekar writing the dialogues and finally Manivasan doing the art. Popular Kannada actress Haripriya was cast for the role of Sindhu, love interest of the main lead. Bindu Madhavi was cast for the role of Amrutha and Srinivas Avasarala was cast for the role of Nani's friend. Being a comedy film, it features most of the Telugu comedians like M. S. Narayana, Dhanraj, Ramesh, Raghu, Venu and Vennela Kishore. Meghna Naidu did a special song in the movie. M. S. Narayana was cast in a role of Telugu lecturer, his previous real life job before becoming an actor. Chandrashekar Gundimeda assisted Ashok with the dialogues. Shooting of the film began in October 2010 and was initially planned to release in April 2011. but the film got delayed due to 2011 Telugu film industry strike. The movie was completed in August 2011 and the film was released in October 2011. Shooting was predominantly done in Hyderabad and Guntur.

Release and reception

The film was released in India and overseas on 14 October 2011. The film was received with mixed to positive reviews. Jeevi of Idlebrain gave a good 3 of 5 rating for the movie and praised Nani for his acting in the movie. Reviewer rom CNN-IBN gave a positive review stating that the movie is above average and Nani's performance impressive. The film fared very well at the box-office despite the mixed reviews and was declared a hit in the year 2011.

Box office

The film collected ₹ 3.8 crore on its first day. Its total collection is around ₹ 30 crore at the box office. Its Tamil version opened strongly due to Nani's previous release Naan Ee and collected ₹ 15 crore at the box office. The film was a super hit at the box office in Telugu and a hit in Tamil. This film marked Nani earning two super hits in the same year, along with Ala Modalaindi.

Soundtrack

Audio release of the film was held on 19 September 2011 in Prasads Lab, Hyderabad. The audio was released and distributed by Aditya Music. The music of this film was composed by Selvaganesh. The audio was well received. Telugu lyricist Krishna Chaitanya penned 5 songs in the film while Sri Mani wrote the remaining one song.