Pushpa: The Rise (2021) Review: Swagger as Industrial Policy

Is Pushpa: The Rise worth watching?

Yes, if you want the film that made “Thaggedhe Le” a national mood — Celluloid rates it Recommended. It earns a 73% Celluloid Score from editorial rating (80), Metascore (65), Letterboxd (3.5/5), and IMDb (7.6/10). The 92% audience snapshot is display-only.

Sukumar’s Telugu original runs 179 minutes. On Celluloid we file it with Action and Thriller peers from India because it remains the primary “pan-India mass film” search target of the early 2020s, ahead of Pushpa 2: The Rule.

Labourer as brand

Pushpa Raj is a labourer who climbs a smuggling ladder by treating humiliation as fuel. Allu Arjun does not play poverty; he plays style under pressure — the walk, the shoulder, the refusal to be renamed. Devi Sri Prasad’s soundtrack is not accompaniment; it is the film’s thesis that a working-class antihero can be a fashion object. Fahadh Faasil’s Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat is the rare cop who feels like a competing lead: dry, vain, and funnier than the hero. When the film works, it is because those two men are in a status war, not a plot.

The middle-hour tax

At nearly three hours the rise is repetitive — another consignment, another insult, another dance. Rashmika Mandanna is asked to orbit a story that barely needs a romance. Celluloid’s score reflects industrial craft and critic goodwill, not a tight crime picture. Watch it for the interval block and the cop; do not expect The Godfather of the Eastern Ghats.

Verdict

Pushpa: The Rise is event cinema as catchphrase. It earned its sequel. Start here, then decide whether you have the stamina for The Rule’s even longer empire.